Gov. Timothy M. Kaine delivered some bad news to the Axis of Taxes yesterday, saying that a state Senate plan to raise the gas tax by five cents per gallon won’t make it through the House of Delegates. Reports Jeff Schapiro with the Times-Dispatch (my italics):
Kaine, who favors new taxes for transportation but won’t fight for them this year, said House Republicans are firm in their opposition to any tax increase.
“They haven’t decided the way they’re going to kill them, but they’re going to kill them,” Kaine, a Democrat, told reporters yesterday.
Does anybody remember when Tim Kaine was running for office? Does anyone remember his promise not to raise taxes for transportation until an amendment to the state constitution prevented any budgetary raids on the Transportation Trust Fund? I still remember but Mainstream Media has been seized with amnesia. You can argue that the lockbox is a moot point as long as Kaine is not actively plugging for hikes in the gas tax, as opposed to merely expressing sympathy for them. But you’d think that maybe, just maybe, a reporter would ask him, “Whatever happened to that lockbox idea? Why aren’t you trying to move that forward?”
Here’s my hunch: The lockbox idea was a ploy to make tax hikes for transportation more palatable — not born of a genuine conviction that it was needed. It serves no useful political purpose anymore, so it has been all forgotten. For what it’s worth, I still think it’s a good idea.