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Virginia's Red State Blues
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| Contributor | Scott³ |
| Last Edited | Scott³ Jun 24, 2007 10:49pm |
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| Category | News |
| News Date | Monday, June 25, 2007 04:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Wall Street Journal.
"Starting July 1, residents and drivers in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads will be taxed by regional governments in which they have little say or influence. It's all part of a tax hike the Republican-controlled Legislature enacted earlier this year. And it's a sharp break from what the state has allowed in the past.
Previously, local governments had to first get permission from Richmond before imposing new sales taxes. But now, thanks to liberal GOPers in the Legislature, two regional transportation authorities have been given the power to impose, at their discretion, additional levies on consumers and tolls on drivers. Given the appetite for new revenue at all levels of government, this change is likely to be only the start of a new drive among counties and cities for the right to impose similar taxes and fees without permission from the Legislature. Virginia Republicans who supported this revenue grab argue that this is not a tax hike--but voters aren't buying it.
This is not the first tax increase Republicans in Richmond have gotten behind in recent years. Back in 2004 they pushed through a record-setting $1 billion tax increase, much to the delight of then Gov. Mark Warner, a Democrat who is now high on the list of potential vice presidential candidates. That tax hike was all the more dismaying because it came not long before the state was found to have a similarly sized surplus--and not long after voters rejected a nearly identical tax hike on the ballot.
That's the backdrop to primary elections that took place earlier this month, when conservatives ousted two incumbent liberal Republican senators and came within 300 votes of unseating the powerful Senate Majority Leader Walter Stosch. Mr. Stosch survived only because he spent $1 million in ads portraying him (wrongly) as a Ronald Reagan conservative. Two other liberal Republicans--Russell Potts and John Chichester--knew they likely wouldn't survive the primaries and are ret |
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