There’s a story hurtling around the Internet that’s taken on a life of its own. But it’s not entirely accurate, and I’m trying to get to the bottom of it. Republicans are working up a good head of steam — as was I for a while — over a statement by Del. Lacy E. Putney, I-Bedford, the incoming House Appropriations Chairman. In a letter distributed by the General Assembly Republican leadership yesterday, he asserted:
[Gov. Timothy M. Kaine] plans on diverting $180 million from the Transportation Trust Fund in Fiscal Year 2008 so he can fund new or expanded non-transportation programs.
Similar claims were made in electronic newsletters distributed by at least two Republican members of the General Assembly.
If that statement were accurate, it would represent an astounding about-face for Kaine, who campaigned on a promise to create a constitutional lockbox to prevent the legislature from ever raiding the Transportation Trust Fund again. The constitutional lockbox has since died a quiet, whimpering death — it crawled into a corner never to be seen or spoken of again. Even so, a raid on the Transportation Trust Fund would constitute a staggering betrayal by the Governor.
Well, it turns out the story isn’t completely accurate true. I checked with Gordon Hickey, Kaine’s press secretary, who categorically denies that Kaine is taking any money out of the Transportation Trust Fund. The $180 million, Hickey says, is coming out of General Fund dollars allocated to transportation. And the reason is that the transportation projects simply aren’t ready to be built. The Governor moved the money to 2010 because that’s when the projects will come on line.
Did the Republicans make a mistake? Well, let’s say they’ve back-pedaled some. They’re conceding that the money is coming out of General Fund, not the Transportation Trust Fund. But they’re still fighting mad.
Here’s how Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling explained the situation to the recipients of an e-mail exchange that I was privy to. I literally received this while typing this post, so this is fresh:
The money the Governor is diverting from the general fund transportation allocation is being spent on other things. Specifically, it is being used to help eliminate the remaining budget shortfall in the current fiscal year, along with $261M from the rainy day fund. While the Governor has promised to replace the money in 2010, the problem with that is twofold. First, we have to trust him to do it and not change course and redirect the money somewhere else. Second, he can only do it if his very optimistic revenue projections of 6.6% revenue growth come to pass, and many of us feel that those revenue projections are overly optimistic given the general economic downturn we are facing.
In the final analysis, our complaints against the Governor’s budget come down to the following:
First, we are concerned that he is trying to close the budget shortfall in the current fiscal year by taking money out of the rainy day fund and out of the general fund appropriation for transportation, rather than making additional spending reductions.
Second, we are concerned that his biennial budget includes hundreds of millions of dollars in spending on new and expanded government programs in the second year of the biennium, which appears to be financed by overly optimistic revenue assumptions and an excessive reliance on more than $3B in new debt.
Bottom line: This isn’t the political dynamite that I — and others — initially thought it was. But a strong case can be made against the maneuver. Here are follow-up questions I should have thought to ask Hickey: (1) Which specific projects were to be funded by this $180 million, and (2) what guarantees are there that a future governor (Kaine will be gone in 2010) will put the money back in?