Virginia has no “anti-tax” political party. The “anti-tax” label routinely applied in the Mainstream Media to Republican factions in the General Assembly is patently ludicrous. A Republican legislature has presided over a 30 percent increase in state government expenditures adjusted for inflation and population growth over the past 10 years. (See “Fiscal Crisis Pending: Quick, Raise Taxes!”)
What we have in Virginia are two political parties, or, in the case of the Republican party, two factions, that haggle over the rate of growth of government spending. The main difference between Democrats and Republicans is that Democrats are forthright about calling for tax increases while the so-called “anti-tax” faction of the Republican Party will do anything to avoid calling a tax by its name.
Republicans suffer from crippling political disadvantages in this ongoing struggle. First is the clear preference of the Mainstream Media for Big Government. You can deduce all you need to know about the prejudices of the press from the fact that journalists and editorial writers routinely label certain legislative factions “anti-tax,” which is a laughable misnomer, but never label their pro-tax opponents as what they so very clearly are: “pro-tax.”
The other disadvantage, self-inflicted, of what might more properly be called the “slower tax growth” crowd, is the lack of a set of coherent principles undergirding their positions. The “slower tax growth” faction is caught between a rock and a hard place: a perceived need to increase revenue while simultaneously placating a middle-class constituency that is sick and tired of its ever-escalating tax burden. The solution this spring was to raise $1 billion in new revenue for transportation while proclaiming none of it constituted a “statewide tax increase.”
The authors of the the Comprehensive Transportation Funding and Reform act of 2007 instituted a half billion dollars of regional tax hikes in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, but those didn’t count because they weren’t “statewide.” They imposed assorted statewide fees, such as the controversial Abuser Fees, but those didn’t count because they weren’t “taxes.” They borrowed money, which they would pay off with General Fund revenues, and they tapped General Fund surpluses instead of rebating it to taxpayers, but none of that counted either because no taxes were raised.
The result is a revenue-raising scheme that is spread among so many different sources, and is so disconnected from how far people drive, when they drive, or the demands they place on the transportation system, that it arguably will do more harm than good.
Here’s the ugly truth that the politicians of all parties and factions refuse to tell the voters: Virginia can never solve its transportation crisis without moving to a user pays system. (That’s only the first step toward a genuine solution, but it’s a critical first step.) Virginia cannot build its way out of traffic congestion by subsidizing construction of new roads and transit programs through revenue streams disconnected from the use of those roads and transit facilities. When the cost is free, the quantity demanded is potentially limitless. That’s Economics 101. The only way to moderate demand is to make those who use the system pay for their use.
The only way to restrain spending on roads and transit in the long run is to establish market discipline upon the transportation system. If that means, among other things, imposing a “gas tax” user fee in place of the opaque mix of taxes, fees, penalties, bonds and revenue surpluses that we have now, then so be it. But that’s something the Republicans, who once believed in market principles, have steadfastly refused to do. If the Republicans find themselves in trouble with the electorate this fall, it’s because opposing “statewide” increases in “taxes” while simultaneously abetting ever-growing spending is not a formula that most Virginians will buy into.