Just about every establishment Democrat in Virginia is urging former Gov. Tim Kaine to run for the Senate seat being vacated by incumbent Jim Webb. According to this report, the Democrats’ Jefferson-Jackson Dinner was a veritable love-in for Kaine, with attendees chanting his name and urging him to get in the race. But there are a few big issues that might keep Kaine on the sidelines…not the least of which is explaining to Virginians why, in the final budget he submitted as Governor, he wanted to reinstate the hated car tax.
Let’s go back to December 2009. Mr. Kaine is in the waning days of his administration. One of his last acts, as it has been with governors before him, it to propose a new budget for the commonwealth. Times are tough. State revenues are in decline and the budget is at least $3.5 million in the red. What’s a person to do?
First, you have to do a bit of backtracking. As the state’s financial picture dimmed in 2008 and 2009, Mr. Kaine said he wasn’t interested in tax hikes to narrow the shortfall. Part of this is a political equation – Democrats at least have to give lip service to the idea of no new taxes. But part of it is simple reality. Recessions aren’t a good time to raise taxes.
But after the November elections, when Republicans thumped Democrats statewide, Mr. Kaine changed his tune putting tax hikes on the table.
While Republicans urged the Governor not to take this path, Kaine brushed-off their appeal, telling them that he had already made all the cuts he could stomach during his term and that their anti-tax plea was divorced from reality.
A couple of weeks later, Mr. Kaine presented his final budget. There were more cuts, and proposals that would have state workers begin contributing to their own retirement.
Kaine also wanted to bring back the car tax.
In his presentation, Mr. Kaine chastised lawmakers for never taking car tax relief seriously. Since they didn’t really care about it, he was going to restore the dreaded fee and use the $950 million in state savings to help close the budget gap.
Kaine also included an option for local governments who didn’t want to have tea parties breaking out on the courthouse steps – if they didn’t want a car tax, they could impose a one percent income tax instead. Kaine sold this as a way for local governments to diversify their income streams.
Needless to say, his car tax proposal was promptly stripped from the budget in 2010 and the General Assembly.
Gov. Bob McDonnell went on to use a combination of cuts, fee hikes and other tricks of the trade to balance the books. Spending was rolled back to 2006 levels and yet something wondrous happened: the sky didn’t fall. Now, Virginia is actually starting to see revenues tick-up, just enough so that legislators are eager to get back to their old spend-happy ways.
Back in a 2005 televised gubernatorial debate between Kaine and Republican Jerry Kilgore, Kilgore charged that Kaine had every intention of raising taxes. Kaine was insulted, and snapped that Kilgore was making stuff up.
Except he wasn’t, and Kaine’s final budget proves it. The campaign ads practically write themselves.
