Gov. Tim Kaine and his successor, Bob McDonnell, have found common ground in denouncing Virginia’s awkward budget process, in which an outgoing governor hands off a two-year spending plan he won’t be around to defend as it moves through the legislature.
Kaine, as one of his last acts as governor, this month rolled out a budget proposal that would close a $4.2 billion shortfall through mid-2012 through a combination of tax increases and spending cuts. McDonnell, who takes office Jan. 16, has a short window to propose his own changes, which are likely to be considerable given Kaine’s and McDonnell’s starkly different stances on taxes.
Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine’s final budget proposal includes:
¥ $2.3 billion in cuts to education, health care and other sectors
¥ $1.9 billion annual income tax increase, replacing car tax
¥ Elimination of the “dealer discount” on sales tax
The result: A political tussle over which administration will take the blame for vast cuts to services, with neither executive fully owning the spending blueprint. Neither McDonnell, a Republican, nor Kaine, a Democrat, wants to keep the system in place.
“Regardless of who is governor, or the political parties they represent, such an arrangement does not serve the public’s best interest nor does it create a fiscally prudent planning process,” McDonnell said Monday. “It needs to be reformed.”
Echoing a campaign trail promise, McDonnell said he would push for the development of the biennial budget to be moved to odd-numbered years, which would require a governor to shepherd both of his two-year budgets through the legislature during his term.
Kaine, in a recent interview with The Examiner, said the commonwealth should keep budgeting for two years at a time but should shift the process by a year. The departing governor, however, cautioned that the budget still would lay tough choices in front of the chief executive.
“Even if this budget cycle changes by a year, there are still going to be some really tough decisions to make all the time,” Kaine said.
The problems in passing off the proposed budget at the end of a governor’s term were less apparent four years ago, when Democratic Gov. Mark Warner handed power to a like-minded Kaine administration. But the transition is far more rocky for McDonnell, who has promised to fight central elements of Kaine’s budget, including a nearly $2 billion-per-year income tax surcharge that would replace the unpopular car tax.
