Poor Bill Howell. My heart goes out to him. He showed true leadership and resolve in fashioning the GOP transportation package and then putting his prestige on the line to get it passed. To make the deal work with members of the Senate, the Speaker of the House swallowed a number of undesirable elements, such as state and regional tax increases, that he undoubtedly found personally distasteful. Such is the nature of compromise.
But there is a difference between compromise and capitulation. Yesterday, the Senate Finance Committee deleted $250 million a year from General Fund surpluses from the GOP compromise and replaced them with more than $330 million a year through $150 fees on newly registered vehicles. That would come on top of all the increases in state and regional taxes in the compromise proposal.
It’s conceivable that Gov. Timothy M. Kaine will emerge as a force in the debate and attempt to broker another compromise, but he’s shown little inclination to do so to this point, and the intransigence of Sen. John H. Chichester and his allies in the Senate suggest that there isn’t much room for negotiation anyway. Chichester, it appears, either wants it all or nothing at all. And nothing is what he might well get.
Which is just as well. The tax-and-financing aspects of the GOP transportation package were horrendous to begin with; Chichester’s add-ons would make it even more insufferable. The best thing that could happen now is for the whole edifice to collapse. To keep the 2007 session of the General Assembly from being a complete loss, perhaps Howell can still salvage the less controversial pieces of the compromise such as the bills that reform the way Virginia builds and maintains its roads.
Otherwise, it’s clear that the political system is gridlocked over transportation taxes. Maybe it’s time to take the issue to the voters and see what they have to say. Howell’s effort at compromise does make one thing very plain: We know who the real “obstructionists” are. Reporters can paint Chichester and his allies as the “moderates” in a battle against the anti-tax “die-hards” all they want, but there is no way to spin the story to make it look like Chichester compromised and Howell didn’t. The Howell faction of the Republican Party has inoculated itself against accusations of intransigence. The Axis of Taxes now looks like the ultras.
Let’s see what happens in the GOP primaries this spring. Will the rank and file be enraged enough to throw out the proponents of Business As Usual? Let’s see what happens in the general elections this fall. How eager will voters be to boost their state and regional tax burdens after the inevitable round of property tax hikes this spring? The results could be clarifying.