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Show
us the Plan
Gov.
Warner won't tip his hand on plans for restructuring
the tax code. Maybe that's because he wants to hide
from voters how he's breaking his campaign pledge not
to increase taxes.
Gov.
Mark R. Warner and several leading legislators must
think the people of Virginia have had a collective
lobotomy. It was only two years ago that Warner was
running for governor solemnly and repeatedly
proclaiming that he would not raise taxes.
Earlier
this month, however, Warner asked a legislative
commission studying tax reform to propose new taxes
on Internet retail sales and higher taxes on
corporate income. At other times, he has proposed
enacting a new tax on services and raising the tax
rate on cigarettes. All of this comes after
vigorously campaigning for ballot measures in 2002
in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads to raise the
sales tax in those regions.
When
Gary Thomson, the Chairman of the Republican Party
of Virginia, said in a fundraising letter this month
that Warner intends to ask for new taxes, he was
sharply criticized by editorial writers and even a
GOP legislator. Why? Because Thomson stated the
obvious: Warner intends to raise taxes.
Warner
has said publicly that he wants more money for
public education. He told The Washington Post
editorial board that he supported a tax code
overhaul to boost money for schools.
So
let’s have some straight talk from editorial
writers and more aggressive questioning of state
politicians by journalists. They let Warner off the
hook during the 2001 gubernatorial campaign when he
said he wouldn’t raise taxes while building his
campaign promises on the assumption that taxes would
be raised. They have let him off the hook repeatedly
since the election.
The
essential question is whether our elected
representatives want to increase the amount of
government spending in relation to the
Commonwealth’s economy. We can end the quibbling
over the meaning of “tax neutrality” if the
governor and candidates will take a position on a
constitutional amendment to limit state spending to
a set percentage of Virginia’s gross domestic
product or to the rate of increase in state
population and inflation.
Warner
says he won’t disclose the specifics of his tax
proposal because his plan would be savaged by
political opportunists resorting to outrageous
characterizations. What is most alarming is that
many commentators applaud him for refusing to lay
out his plan.
Unfortunately,
politics in a free country can be a brutal
enterprise. That’s the price we pay for freedom.
What Warner and these editorial writers share is a
deep distrust of the voters. If our system is to
endure, we must trust the voters to sort out the
true from the false in overheated campaign polemics.
Jefferson observed that we don’t have angels in
the guise of men to govern us.
If
Warner is unwilling to take the risk involved in
pushing for tax enhancement, he is, quite simply,
not a leader and undeserving of the legacy he says
he wants to leave. Given the fact that he has
violated his campaign pledge not to raise taxes and
declared his intention to enhance state revenues,
his cynical decision to withhold his tax plan is
fair game for his opponents.
To
paraphrase one editorial writer who argued that the
GOP’s Thomson has forfeited the right to lead
because he is “willing to scuttle progress for
partisan gain,” our governor has forfeited the
right to lead because he has so little confidence in
the voters that he won’t come clean on his tax
proposal.
Politics
shouldn’t be a game of hide-the-pea.
--
July 28, 2003
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