Since Tuesday, Kilgore is having the darnedest time figuring out where he wants to be in the political spectrum. He can’t run on the Right after the shellacking laid on Grover Norquist’s candidates. He can’t run as a centrist, because that aligns him with Mark Warner. And the ‘liberal’ slots are already taken. And now this–get him off script for two seconds and he makes the biggest blunder of his campaign–he ducks and runs on Russ Potts–and the second biggest–he says on the record, in public, that Potts can’t win. If I were Potts, I’d be on the first plane to Vegas. Surely a fortune awaits anyone with that kind of luck.
First plane to Vegas
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Comments
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OK Barnie, I confess I have no idea what you are talking about.
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Can’t run? Jerry Kilgore likes to jog.
I’m not sure about Russ ‘vegas vacation’ Potts and his third party gambling troubles, but I do know he’s not dealing with a full deck. And Kaine will need to deal with Potts.
Time to fold…
~ the blue dog
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Kilgore is the best thing Potts has going for him. I see three chairs at the debates in eleven districts…Kaine, Potts and an empty one…who could it be. This will be a field day for the press. So far Potts is the pick in Vegas. Get your bets down. A long hot summer for the silent one.
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Kilgore is the best thing Potts has going for him. I see three chairs at the debates in eleven districts…Kaine, Potts and an empty one…who could it be. This will be a field day for the press. So far Potts is the pick in Vegas. Get your bets down. A long hot summer for the silent one.e.
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I’m not sure what Barnie’s saying either.
But if he’s implying that Kilgore will raise the gas tax, then I agree.
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Barnie, given the choice between the WSJ’s analysis, and yours, I’ll go with the Wall Street Journal. While no tax advocate challenged an anti-tax incumbent, Grover’s candidates knocked off one incumbent (Reese), and gave two (Parrish and May) the primary runs of their lives (only 55% each). Plus, the fair-haired boy of the GOP tax advocates lost in the LG’s race, even though he dishonestly postured as a tax cutter.
As much as the tax advocates try to marginalize those saying “Enough is enough!”, it is abundantly clear that the vigor and progress is one our side.
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Potts needs to be in Vegas. That’s probably the only place he has a chance at raising money, given the rise to a whopping 2% in the polls that his free media strategy has produced.
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Mr. Young: as tedious as this is for me, I’m not going to let pass this “dishonest” “tax advocate” stuff about Connaughton. Connaughton was the only candidate in the lists for either party who had actually consistently cut taxes in any way, shape or form. That’s an objective truth. It wasn’t compelling to a majority of the GOP voters. connaughton lost. But it doesn’t make him a tax raiser any more than he decreed that market values should rise. And it doesn’t make him “dishonest.”
The rest of the field (both parties), however sincerely held their views, had nothing but words (and rather vague ones at that) to offer on the subject. What gripes you is the impact of the external housing market on the arithmetic of your tax bill (which increased a shade over 1/2 of 1 % of the increase in the value of your house over the 2000 to 2004 period). You’ve said that your idea of a “tax cutter” is big tent enough to include officials who vote to increase tax rates so long as property values fall far enough to result in an absolute tax decrease.
What Connaughton accomplished wasn’t good enough even if no one else came close to doing as much. I’m now watching to see if anyone can turn the remaining words and hot air into real world results. I hope they don’t do it by mismanaging the place so badly that values fall to give us one of the “tax cut” scenarios you say you could accept.
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Hold on a second Anonymous 1:34. You say “But it doesn’t make him a tax raiser any more than he decreed that market values should rise.”.. You seem to think that somehow market values drive property tax assessments. There is no such direct correllation. County property taxes are based on the county’s “assessed” value of the home, not on the market value. Case in point, my home in Fairfax county recently was assessed by their tax office with an increase of $30K on the land value alone. When I checked around, I found out that every home in the neighborhood had that same $30K increase despite the size of the lot. The whole idea of our tax assessments being linked to market values is a big lie that allows local governments to rake in the dough while claiming it’s out of their hands. County tax assessors could be drawing straws for all I know in order to determine my property tax asessment. Connoughton raised taxes, let’s not beat around the bush. He also praised Mark Warner’s tax increase as well. He’s no conservative in my book.
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Anon 1:34 — As tedious as this is for me, I’m not going to let pass your “dishonest” misrepresentations about Chairman Sean. I can’t improve much on what Anon 2:31 addressed, but I can address other issues.
During his term of office, the average property tax owner in PWC saw a 50-60% increase in the dollar amount of his property tax bill. Have you been a PWC property owner during that period? If so, please provide the amount of your property tax on your primary residence in 2000 and that in 2005 (assuming that you reside in the same house). Let’s see what your personal facts prove. By that standard, Chairman Sean is a tax advocate.
State law mandates that, without a vote, the property tax rate reverts annually to that millage that would yield 101% of the prior year’s revenue. Yet in every year that he has been on the PWC BOCS, Chairman Sean has lobbied and voted for budget which increase spending and the tax rate to far greater than 101% of the prior year’s revenue. He has not even instructed or sought to instruct County bureaucrats to draw up a budget at the default amount. By the standard of state law, Chairman Sean is a tax advocate.
In 2002, Chairman Sean endorsed approval of the sales tax increase referendum. By that standard, Chairman Sean is a tax advocate.
In 2004, Chairman Sean endorsed the state budget scheme to increase taxes. By that standard, Chairman Sean is a tax advocate.
Chairman Sean called car tax relief “a disaster,” implying that he would ameliorate the “disaster” by repealing it. By any standard, that makes Chairman Sean a tax advocate.
Here’s some more facts. In 1994, PWC Supervisors called a special election (on 1 March) to impose a meals tax. Chairman Sean, not even a member of a County GOP Committee that unanimously opposed it (a vote was taken) at the time, remained silent.
In 1995, another meals tax vote was called for the general election. Chairman Sean, not even a member of a County GOP Committee that unanimously opposed it (a vote was taken) at the time, remained silent.
Maybe all of these positions can be justified. I think some probably can. But Chairman Sean has never tried. Instead, he insists on misrepresenting the facts and his records as a tax-and-spender. I’d have a little more respect for him if he’d just tell the truth.
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Mr. Young: I’ll dig out my records and look at them and report back. I’ll check yours too while I’m at it, I would be very surprised if your tax bill or mine went up 50 or 60% in the past six years. When you cite the “Average” I think you’re making the mistake of looking at gross county-wide numbers that include a lot of very up-market new Homes that are very distinct from the usual middle-class housing that formed the tax base when Connaughton took over. These McMansions skew the “average per household” figure. It would be very misleading to assume that folks who have lived in the county for a number of years are routinely seeing increases in their tax bill in the 50-60%range.
Among my friends and neighbors, the increases have been trivial compared to the gains. The tax increases over the time period have been a few hundred dollars for me, the gains have been many thousands. I have been very appreciative of the cuts that Sean has pushed through and have never seen him advocate a tax hike in the county. You haven’t either. I’ve refinanced and conservatively (in the financial, not political, sense) used equity financing to improve my property, which in turn has caused its value to increase. So I’ve had some realization of my gains. My property didn’t start soaring until Connaguhton took over. I realize there are a lot of factors, but he was one of them. PW has been blessed since he got in.I don’t much like the property tax, parituclarly because there seems to be a certain arbitrariness to the assessment function (it probably lags the market by a good bit), but that’s a problem all over the country, it’s not peculiar to PW or to Connaugthon. I’d prefer there be local income taxes (assuming they abolish the property tax), but I do not have any major complaint about how the existing tax has been administered in PW county. For that matter, my general impression is that county services generally have improved tremendously in the past six years, and I am willing to pay a bit for that.
RE your other points, you’re mistaken in several respects. First, connaughton did not endorse the 2004 increases. You got hornswoggled by some Bolling campaign lit legerdemain on that one. Connaughton was quoted in the Washington Post in reaction to a question about impacts of the Warner budget on distribution of state funds to localities. Connaughton said something like “At first blush it’s promising [meaning in terms of addressing his complaints that Richmond screws over the counties and municipalities] but I’m sceptical that they will . . .” I don’t have the exact quote, but that is it’s fair substnace. Bolling’s elves put that out as Connaughton calling the whole 2004 budget “Promising.” Well, most people never check or know the difference so you and a few thousand others buy into it, but it’s not what happened.
Connaguthon supported repeal of the car tax. His complaint has been that the mechanics of the local reimbursement have been a “disaster.” He’s quite right about that. I’ve never seen anyone defend the way the cut was executed and dealt with at the local level. Do you defend that aspect ot the cut? Again, Richmond gets a bright idea, but executes it poorly and without much awareness or concern about how it affects local budgets.
You refer to two 1994, 1995 incidents, long before Connaughton was in Office, in which the local GOP Committee (of which you acknowledge Connaughton was not a member) took a unanimous position re meals taxes in PW and attribute some significance to Connaughton’s not being a part of that. Recall that he was then not an official, not a public figure, and not a committee member). That seems a real stretch. There were thousands and thousands of residents of Prince William who were not on the Board, and not on the GOP committee at the time. The fact that they said nothing doesn’t make them meals tax advocates. I find that very bizarre, unless you left something out that is significant.
Finally, the regional sales tax referendum was consistent with connaughton’s recurring theme that Richmond had proven itself incompetent and indecisive in dealing with transportation issues in Northern Virginia and in Hampton Roads. He wrote an op-ed piece at the time that he viewed the referndum as a failure mode situation, but that, given richmond’s paralysis, he preferred giving the localities authority and funding to address the matter directly. this is not that far off Kilgore’s referendum concepts now. I would prefer richmond get its act together and not de-centralize tax and spending decisions on transportation, but the Connaughton position was a clear reaction to systemic failures to address these issues at the state level, and not an endorsement of higher taxes for the sake of higher taxes.
the only reason I spend this much time on it is the vitriolic personal component of many of your (and a few others’) comments. The primary is over and the consultants’ games can be put away. It’s fair enough to disagree with any candidate’s political proposals. there are even a few politicians around who are unscrupulous bastards for whom truth makes no difference. Sean is not one of them. I have known him personally for 15 years, and found him, as a military officer, as a friend, as a lawyer, to be a straight shooter and genuinely decent guy. You seem totally obsessed about the idea that Connaughton loves taxes. You say he’s is a person of little integrity unless he tells you (and the rest of us) that he really wants to tax the crap out of us. But it just isn’t the case. He cannot honestly say that. Why don’t you revert to talking about the pros and cons of policy. This blog, particularly, is a very good place to do that. But stop all this personal invective. It really ruins the atmosphere for those of us who just like to kick ideas around and who hope that spots like this can be good forums for doing better than our elected leaders have done so far in addressing these issues. We don’t need to populate the place with your hyped-up idea of demons and monsters.
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