Two Out Of Four Candidates For Governor Agree…
By Jason Kenney | Tuesday, December 2nd, 2008 | PoliticsTerry McAuliffe, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee who is eying a gubernatorial bid, disagreed. “You don’t raise taxes in a down economy,” he said.
McDonnell also rejected taxes, saying lawmakers should cut spending. “The worst thing you can do during a recession is try to tax yourself to prosperity,” he said.
Emphasis added. How did Deeds and Moran feel?
“Everything should be on the table,” said Del. Brian Moran, D-Alexandria. His position was echoed by state Sen. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath.
At a time when Virginia is facing tough economic times two candidates for governor feel that sacrifices need to be made among Virginia’s working families instead of it’s bloated government that has grown exponentially over the last eight years.
Maybe McAuliffe is the moderate Democrat in this race.
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Jason Kenney has blogged at J’s Notes since 2001, is the director of RedStormPAC providing online fundraising for Republican candidates in Virginia, and co-founder of K6 Consulting. He is a graduate from Virginia Commonwealth University and resides in Richmond, Virginia.
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5 Responses to "Two Out Of Four Candidates For Governor Agree…"
Nice to see Democrats showing their true colors again.
Eight years of complete failure to even understand or implement budget projections…eight years people….and these jokers think they deserve four more. Apparently, the only way you get Democrats to cut spending and eliminate the waste is if you require them to actaully formulate the projections and then when shortfalls result they are forced to do what they should have been doing all along–minding the dam store. Wait, we may be on to something here.
First off not every Democrat advocated raising taxes.
Second, an increase in the fuel tax is projected to be necessary to just continue current levels of maintenance even if such an increase would not provide additional revenues to fund needed improvements.
Seems Republicans think some producers of additional revenue such as abuser fees and tolls are OK. Well I’m telling you that such methods of digging into my pocket are worse then an across the board increase in the fuel tax.
As a self employed truck driver I am even willing to pay an even larger percentage of increase of taxes through the already existing split tax on diesel where truckers pay an additional tax through IFTA (International Fuel Tax Agreement) then what everyone pays at the pump.
Fuel prices have been dropping and Virginia charges lower fuel taxes then nearly every (with the exception of Tennessee) neighboring state. If fuel taxes are not raised and VDOT starts closing bridges due to lack of maintenance or VDOT is forced to close major highways due to lack of funding for chemicals during snowstorms, I am going to know who to point the finger of blame at.
In time, as Virginia and America starts switching to alternative fuels a new method of paying for road maintenance and construction will have to be found. However in the meantime an increase in the fuel tax kills two birds with one stone. It provides the revenue to maintain our highway infrastructure while assisting in motivating the adoption of more energy efficient vehicles or even alternative fuels for transportation which will help break our addiction to foreign oil.
When the state operating budget has blown up by nearly 99% in the last decade, I think the first question folks need to ask is where all that additional funding has gone through the years. Are Virginia’s working families better off by 99% compared to a decade ago? Are our roads or our schools better off by 99% since a decade ago?
Wasteful, bloated government is not the answer, and throwing more money at such a beast does nothing to help solve the problems not only that the state faces but that Virginians face day to day.
Jason Kenney,
I am uneducated about broad aspects of the state budget.
However on the transportation budget I think I can speak with authority.
With increasing fuel prices, citizens are motivated to buy less fuel. As they buy less fuel they pay smaller amounts of taxes to maintain the highway infrastructure because the tax is charged at cents per gallon instead of a percentage of the price paid.
Now we have an increasing demand of the highway infrastructure that is not necessarily matched by the increase in revenues. Increased traffic is not automatically matched by increased revenues due to the increased shift to more fuel efficient vehicles. But these new fuel efficient vehicles put just as much demand on the level of service provided as the previous less fuel efficient vehicles.
Fuel taxes need to go up to provide the same level of services today as were provided yesterday.
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