Timothy P. Carney: How Steve Shannon's friends profit from your tax dollars
By: Timothy P. Carney
Examiner Columnist
October 30, 2009
If a politician wants to win over The Washington Post's editors, his surest bet is to call for higher taxes. Similarly, if a Virginia politician wants to woo the cadre of politically active developers in the D.C. suburbs, he also needs to back higher taxes and policies that funnel those taxes to private developers.
This is one way Stephen Shannon, the Democratic nominee for Virginia attorney general, has made friends around the Beltway. While Ken Cuccinelli, the Republican candidate in the race, was endorsed by the commonwealth's Fraternal Order of Police, Shannon has pocketed the endorsement of the Post and the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce.
Read the Post endorsement, and you come across this telling critique of Cuccinelli: "He attacked the efforts of some Republican lawmakers to secure adequate funding for schools and roads." Translation: Cuccinelli opposed tax increases. This is an unpardonable sin in the Post's eyes.
Shannon talks about low taxes, but he has voted in Richmond for higher taxes on at least three occasions, and the Post sees Shannon -- like gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds -- as a friend of tax increases.
You may be asking two questions at this point: (1) How is tax policy relevant in the race to be Virginia's top cop? and (2) Why is Fairfax's Chamber of Commerce backing a tax increases?
For the first question, there are two answers: (A) For the Post's editorial page, every occasion -- a discussion of public schools, an editorial on health care reform or an attorney general endorsement -- calls for tax increase advocacy; and (B) AG may stand for "attorney general," but it also stands for "aspiring governor," especially in Virginia.
So now we move on to the Fairfax Chamber of Commerce. Why did it endorse Shannon? Here, it helps to follow the money. Other than law firms, Shannon's biggest source of money is the "Real Estate/Construction" industry, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. Within that sector, Shannon has raised $64,000 from Virginia developers, more than 2 1/2 times what Cuccinnelli has raised from them.
Developers were the driving force behind the 2002 push for a Northern Virginia tax increase. Northern Virginia developers also brought together the coalition that helped Gov. Mark Warner pass Virginia's largest tax increase ever in 2004. Cuccinelli was a chief antagonist to both of these tax increases. Sure enough, look at the names signing the checks to Shannon's campaign, and you'll see the same names that were behind those tax increase campaigns.
Myron Erkiletian was the top donor to Citizens for Better Transportation -- the developers' political arm that led the 2002 tax increase campaign. Erkiletian is also a Shannon donor. Shannon's top individual donor is Edward Hart Rice, described in the Post as a "real estate investor."
Albert Dwoskin is another Shannon donor who backed the tax increase push in 2002 -- and Dwoskin just happened to own 130 acres along a stretch of road those new tax dollars would have expanded. Famed developer Til Hazel -- a driving force behind the 2002 tax increase effort -- is also a Shannon donor.
And the Fairfax Chamber of Commerce is openly at war with Virginia taxpayers. The organization's agenda includes opposing a homestead deduction to property taxes (a deduction that would make it easier for families to afford life in the costly county) and opposing legislative efforts to prevent developers from offloading costs to taxpayers.
The chamber has endorsed Shannon, who regularly describes himself as "pro-business." There's more than one way to be "pro-business," though: You could favor lower taxes and less regulation as Cuccinelli does, thus creating an open and level playing field for all businesses -- even those that don't yet exist. Or you can support a system of taxes and subsidies as Shannon does, thus rewarding existing businesses, especially those who are politically well-connected.
When asked in a recent debate for details about what the AG job entailed, Shannon filibustered and evaded so badly that Cuccinelli jokingly made a court room-style objection that the witness was not answering the question -- more evidence Shannon is really running this year for the 2013 gubernatorial nomination. Well, the Post and the Northern Virginia developers are pleased that Shannon is a pro-tax increase "Aspiring Governor."
Timothy P. Carney is The Washington Examiner's Lobbying Editor, His K Street column appears on Wednesdays.
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