Cries of ‘crisis’ unconvincing

By The News Virginian Staff

Published: June 23, 2008

Children of wise parents soon learn the limited efficacy of stamping feet, wailing in store aisles or turning their faces from ruddy to ashen by holding their breath in an attempt to persuade. Or they grow to master political tactics esteemed by the left. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine wants $1 billion, and if Republicans and Virginians do not provide it, bridges will fall, potholes will be transformed into sinkholes and commuters will perish on the clogged roads of Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads.
War is being waged again in Richmond over state transportation money. Kaine wants to increase motor vehicle and home sales taxes and annual car registration fees to pay for road improvements. To taxpayers in Staunton last month who greeted this idea with disdain, Kaine sniffed, “then stay off the roads.” His rebuff was similar in Hampton, where a group chanted, “No new taxes,” and Kaine answered: “No new roads.”
The trouble for Kaine is that his proposal is being greeted similarly in the capital, where the General Assembly reconvened Monday to begin anew its abortive attempts to solve the transportation money riddle. Over Kaine and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle loom past failures. The state Supreme Court rejected as unconstitutional a plan to establish non-elected taxing bodies in Northern Virginia to collect money for road fixes. The people rejected as draconian a plan to collect the money from abusive driver fees.
So frustration mounts in the mind of Kaine. He has tried bipartisan alternatives and they have fizzled, so what to do now but increase taxes and fees, the recession be damned. Taxpayers point to skyrocketing fuel and food costs, but never mind. Kaine’s approach might be tried in starving sections of the Third World. Not enough food? Well, just grow some.
What the governor neglects to mention – surely, it merely slipped his mind – is that the state already has been siphoning away a steady stream of taxpayer dollars. Virginia spending has increased 40 percent over six years and doubled over the last 10. This did not deter state lawmakers from requesting tens of millions of dollars more in pork earlier this year.
Kaine, of course, cannot be more than partly blamed for the spending trends. Republicans’ hands are equally if not more stained by extravagances. Wherever fingers point, taxpayers deserve an accounting of how their money has been used before being compelled to pay still more.
This is precisely what House Del. Philip A. Hamilton, R-Newport News, and Sen. Jill Holtzman Vogel, R-Faquier, have in mind. After Kaine made another plea Monday for additional transportation money, those two called for an independent audit of Virginia Department of Transportation operations. They also urged lawmakers and the governor to compile a “defined vision with specific, measurable goals and objectives for Virginia’s transportation system.” This would include identifying the costs along with available and potential revenues to pay the bill.
Having had his hand smacked repeatedly by taxpayers while eyeing their pockets, Kaine has called for “adult” leadership in the General Assembly in response to what he and many dutiful editorialists refer to as the transportation crisis. Hamilton and Holtzman suggest a mature response. We urge Kaine and lawmakers to listen. On the subject of road money, methods of persuasion appealing to Kaine’s inner child so far have left us decidedly unconvinced.