The House Republican leadership issued a press release at 11:30 a.m. today outlining its intention to put the phase-out of the much-reviled car tax back on schedule. Said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Vincent F. Callahan, Jr., R-McLean:
Our first step will be to amend the provisions of Senate Bill 5005 from the 2004 Special Session. This change will begin the process of putting the car tax back on track. When it is reinstituted, beginning with the 2006-2008 biennial budget, a planned system of revenue ‘triggers’ will be in force, ensuring that once again tax relief will be brought to Virginians as the required funds are received by the Commonwealth. By putting triggers back into effect, we will be keeping the promise made to our citizens in 1998, and doing so in a fiscally responsible manner.
I'm all in favor of tax relief, and have argued in favor of it on many occasions. But the Republicans have picked a horrible way to deliver it. Let me count the ways. Phasing out the car tax: (1) rewards high-tax localities over low-tax localities; (2) lowers the cost of car ownership, which encourages people to buy more expensive cars and, thus, increases the state's financial liability; and (3) subsidizes the cost of car ownership at a time when the state is supposedly facing a transportation "crisis." Does it occur to anyone that big, expensive SUVs cause more wear and tear on roads, thus driving up maintenance costs, than smaller, cheaper cars?
Abandoning all philosophical principle, it appears, Virginia's Republican Party has simply embraced the agenda of auto-dependent exurbanites.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
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Philosophical principle? Pffft! What philosophical principle? Conservative? Conservative in what? Fiscal affairs? Please. Fiscally, it's the Virginia Republican hat trick--record spending, record borrowing and record taxes--simultaneously! The state budget is up better than 25% in just four years. About the only thing that's topped the number of Republican tax increases is the number of indictments. Maybe the resignations. I'd have to count them up. I'm sorry. I forgot. Guns in day care centers! What's next? Nursing homes? Every day Virginia Republicans remind us why it took them 130 years to win a majority.
Er, Barnie... far be it for me to leap to the defense of the very same Republicans I just criticized. But let me remind you, we've had a Democratic governor presiding over that 25 percent expansion of the state budget over three of the past four years. Democratic legislators voted en masse for the tax increases. So did a good number of Republicans, but the only faction holding out against a tax increase was Republican.
I know it gives you meaning and purpose in life to bash Republicans, which is fine--they deserve much of the abuse you heap upon them. But do be consistent. Are Republicans contemptible when they favor bigger budgets, or when they oppose them? Are they contemptible when they favor tax increases or when they fight against them? The only common thread I see in your remarks is that they're ALWAYS wrong no matter what they say or do.
Whoa, Barney, it's difficult to post in the wake of that hyperventilating reaction ....
I've always been in favor of car tax relief in some form. Despite all our wishes to the contrary, it'll be a long time before a car is not a necessity to earn a living in Virginia. I always thought "No Car Tax" was a populist measure, but it has lost its populism.
You can go to Carmax right now and get a perfectly serviceable car for $15K. That should be the cap. That number could be inflation adjusted every two years.
Each household should only be able to claim one car per working person's social security number. That's probably a difficult accounting process for localities, but we should not subsidize luxury vehicles or other vehicles not used for commuting.
I don't know how much that would "save," but I think it would inject a modicum of fairness that is lacking in the program. It would keep the populist promise but stem the tide of massive increases.
The solution to the car tax problem is in Del. Tom Rust's bill, HB 2066. It proposes to repeal the car tax reimbursement program and replace it by dedicating 17.5 percent of the state individual tax collections to the localities (this pertains to existing, not new taxes).
This would abolish the car tax in its entirety once and for all and provide localities with part of the income taxes so that their revenue base is diversified.
Since Rust's district is adjoining Callahan's I was hoping that Callahan could be brought on board and support this bill. From what you're all saying, it sounds like Rust's bill is DOA...
Jim: Please, I don't find Republicans 'contemptible.' That's your word, not mine. Why do you use that word? I am in close, convivial communication daily with leading House and Senate Republicans, from the right-wingers like Dick Black to moderates like John Chichester. It would shock you, I'm sure, if you had any inkling. I get invited to speak at some of their gatherings! Ask Jack Reid about my help with his smokestack bill that I've publicly supported on this very blog. You said they've abandoned philosophical principle, not me. I didn't say that. I truly don't believe they have any that guide them--and I think the evidence supports me in that belief. The indictments, the resignations, the tax increases, the record debt--all are factual events. As is, incredibly, the guns in day care centers. If I am factually inaccurate ANYWHERE in the previous post, I ask that you point the inaccuracy out to me and to our readers so that I may correct it. The truth, even flamboyantly written, is still the truth. In that regard, I point out to you, sir, that the governor has no vote--not on the budget, not on taxes, not on spending. Finally, I ask you again, what principles do you speak of?
Boys, boys, boys.
I've enjoyed Bacon's Rebellion for a while, but I've never understood why people who seem to be moderate and pro-business would be so unsupportive of last year's budget. Fiscal responsibility is a two sided coin - on one side, we hold down out of control spending, pork, and special interest kickbacks. There is another side, however - and it's called funding CORE programs.
Once thing that libertarians and liberals can agree on is that the government has core funding responsibilities that it MUST MEET. For example, in Virginia, our constitution mandates the protection of the environment.
We also promise citizens core services like transportation, education (SOQ!!!), and mental health funding. In a state that has the one of the lowest tax burdens in the nation, it is absolutely inexcusable not to enact a small tax increase if we're drastically underfunding these core services.
I know you've heard all of these arguments before - but I enjoy listening to myself talk and I haven't had a chance to weigh in on this new blog.
Keep up the good work, fellas.
Yikes! So much to respond to...
To Barnie: I apologize for chosing the word "contemptible." You are a very congenial guy, and I have no doubt that you are friendly with many Republicans. As I said, when you skewer them, they often deserve it. But I do detect a certain damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't tenor to your writing.
To Will: If the car-tax phase-out were worth preserving, I would deem your suggestions eminently reasonable. Those are good suggestions to keep the darn thing from being so open-ended.
To Phil: But in the end, I agree with Phil. Replacing the car tax phase-out with a slice of the state income tax seems the best solution. It'll be up to local taxpayers to hold local councilmen and supervisors accountable for compensating for the added revenue by lowering taxes elsewhere.
To Paul: Welcome aboard. Yes, Virginia must meet its core services. But the proposition that it's either/or--either higher taxes or worse services--is a false dichotomy. State and local government could cut billions in spending by re-engineering government processes and reforming inefficient land use. Raising taxes takes the pressure off the political class to do the hard work that must be done.
Jim: Thanks. Good to find some state policos on the net. Anyway - on your comment - I just didn't see where that money was going to come from. After blood letting higher education and the transportation trust fund for 3 years - as well as enduring skyrocketing healthcare costs with no help from the Feds - I couldn't figure out where the state was going to get the money.
I'd also like to respond to what I feel is a huge myth about tax raising. It's not the easy way out, because our democracy creates harmful disincentives for any politician who dares raise taxes. They usually get voted out of office, unless they have an AMAZING justification for the increase.
It's a great mechanism, really. It ensures that politicians CAN'T take the easy way out without explaining it to the public.
Now...if they lie to the public about the dire need for a tax increase, that's another thing. But even Mr. Howell agrees that it's better to error on the side of conservative revenue estimates - especially considering our state's recent history of pie in the sky revenue projections (the car tax and the untimely college tuition reduction right before the bottom fell out in 2000)
So what is the scope of transportation in Virginia? Excluding Arlington and Henrico Counties (they do their own), and excluding the federal stuff, we're talking about 57,082 state road miles, 13,869 urban road miles, 12,603 bridges, 4 underwater crossings, 2 mountain tunnels, 3 toll roads, 1 toll bridge, 4 ferry services, 41 rest areas, 10 welcome centers, 107 commuter parking lots, 40 public transit systems, 1 commuter rail, 1 interstate rail, 68 airports, and a state port system operated by the Virginia Port Authority in Hampton Roads, and in Front Royal, and a locally operated port in Richmond. We will NEVER maintain and continuously upgrade a system of this scope with found waste, blue ribbon studies, or new patterns of human settlement! It takes MONEY! Lots and lots of MONEY! Continuous, never ending MONEY! This conjestion some of you obsess about? Isn't it a problem confined mostly to northern Virginia? It's really not much of a deal even in Hampton Roads or Richmond. We have dirt roads out here-miles and miles of them. I live on one. And I know folks who've been to local supervisor meetings for 25 years, begging unsuccessfully to get their's paved! They're tired of eating dust and mud. Many of them would tell you that what we really need is a few years of rampant, uncontrolled growth and development. And Jim, 'inefficient' land use? In whose eyes? To be free-marketers, you all seem to gallop quickly down to the 'government central planning' end of the barn when it comes to land use--particularly somebody else's land. What's with that?
Barnie, You labor under a big misconception when you suggest that I "gallop quickly down to the 'government central planning' end of the barn." You confuse me with the "smart growth" movement.
I do share much the same critique of urban sprawl as the smart growthers--we agree on what's wrong with transportation and land use. But we disagree on how to fix it. Far from favoring more "central planning"--I generally oppose giving more power power to local governments who have bolloxed things badly enough with the power they already possess--I support market-oriented approaches to addressing sprawl. (And the same is true, I might add, of Ed Risse, though we may quibble over some of the details.)
I outlined a free-market approach in a recent column, "The Road to Righteousness" which can be found at http://www.baconsrebellion.com/Issues05/01-04/Bacon.htm.
Jim is right here too. "Smart Growthers" and many "Samrter Growthers" are affraid to embrase Fundamental Change because their money souces are scared of rocking the boat just as those who stand by (e. g. the national and regional media) and let the Any Growth is Good mini-minority charge on (and run up huge deficites).
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