Gilmore for U.S. Senate
Examiner Editorial
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October 27, 2008
With the economy in turmoil and danger abroad, do voters want a candidate who keeps his word or one who doesn’t? That’s the stark choice in Virginia, where two former governors are running to replace retiring Republican John Warner in the U.S. Senate. With public confidence in Washington at record lows, Jim Gilmore’s veracity has earned him The Examiner’s endorsement as the best choice for Virginia - and the nation.
Gilmore took tremendous political flak for keeping his promise to get rid of the hated car tax. The pledge was popular with voters but made him a pariah in Richmond. Fierce political opposition – even from big-spending members of his own party - kept Gilmore from eliminating the despised tax completely, but he managed to reduce it 70 percent – and cut 15 other taxes - before leaving office.
Gilmore’s successor, Democrat Mark Warner, on the other hand, has been basking in the media’s approval ever since he broke his campaign promise not to raise taxes. When Warner rammed his $1.4 billion tax hike – the largest in Virginia history- through the Republican-controlled legislature, the feat catapulted him onto the national stage. But his highly publicized warnings about a $6 billion budget shortfall that he supposedly inherited from Gilmore don’t stand up to scrutiny. The Virginia Constitution requires governors to balance the budget, and Gilmore did, leaving to Warner a record $1 billion in the commonwealth’s “Rainy Day Fund.”
By 2004, Warner was going around warning that Virginia was about to lose its AAA bond rating even though his own finance secretary was telling him that state revenue was higher than forecasted. Indeed, less than two months after Warner’s massive tax hike passed, Virginia posted a $324 million surplus. He declined The Examiner’s invitation to explain this discrepancy. Warner’s fabricated doomsday scenario gave him political cover to raise taxes and state spending - which grew almost 25 percent on his watch - while pretending to be a fiscal conservative who single-handedly saved the commonwealth from insolvency. It was a deft political sleight-of-hand, but as the Cato Institute has observed, “Mark Warner’s reputation as a fiscal moderate is entirely undeserved.”
Judging by Warner’s huge lead in the polls, few voters are aware of his history. But past is prologue. A politician who prospered politically by deliberately misleading the public is likely to do so again. Virginians can trust the battle-scarred Gilmore to keep his word about keeping the lid on taxes, avoiding earmarks, drilling for offshore oil, sealing the border, and voting against any more bailouts – no matter what.
