It’s unanimous: Kaine can keep his tax hikes
By JR Hoeft | Friday, January 22nd, 2010 | PolicyGov. Tim Kaine tried twice to get huge tax hikes into his proposed budgets, and twice, nearly the full House of Delegates rejected him.
In both 2008 and 2010, not a single delegate voted for either of Kaine’s tax bills.
Most recently, Kaine was proposing a 1% increase in the income tax rate from 5.75% to 6.75% – that measure failed yesterday by a vote of 0 in favor to 97 against.
This is a reminder of the 2008 vote where Kaine attempted to increase the gas tax, auto sales tax, home sales tax, and general sales tax – which was also resoundingly rejected 0 in favor to 98 against.
Now there’s a legacy.
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About the author
Conservative to the core; liberal with his opinion! J.R. has been involved in politics for over a decade and has worked on several campaigns in Hampton Roads. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Chesapeake and the Central Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia. He is also the director of “Blogs United” in Virginia. E-mail J.R.. Follow J.R. on Twitter.
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6 Responses to "It’s unanimous: Kaine can keep his tax hikes"
How about restructuring Virginia’s accounting and reporting to the citizens how much money came into the treasury from gas taxes, auto property taxes, etc, vs. how much money from the general fund went to roads and infrastructure these taxes are supposed to support? I’d love to see the baseline funds paid by residents in property taxes on their homes (supposedly to support fire, police and education services) and how much of those receipts have been applied to those programs. The bottom line concept is this; stop trying to raise taxes before reconciling the books and proving the case that the state cannot afford to do what citizens want done. This is a hard case to make when the state uses the “Education lottery” to support schools, then redirects tax revenues previously supporting education to other programs. In the private sector, such practices are called “fraud” and “embezzlement.” If the lottery funds are enough to support Virginia schools, then the state should reduce property taxes, then make a separate case to the citizens for increased taxes for another priority. This hard work would bring integrity back into the process.
Excellent work by the GOP leadership in the House of Delegates. Humiliate the SOB. Kaine was a liberal tax and spender. Always has been. Always will be.
Sound and fury signifying nothing. Except the GOP majaoriy in the House’s continuing perversion of legislative PROCESS to produce the RESULTS it wants. A committee move a bill to the floor of the House without recommendation? Really? Since when. Totally bogus political stunt.
Nice one, Steve.
A budget proposed by Kaine, submitted by Brink, attempted to be withdrawn by Brink ’cause he didn’t want to be on the record with it – as well as other Democrats – suddenly becomes the majority’s fault.
Here’s an idea for Democrats – don’t submit bogus bills and budgets.
I know my response is akin to, “But they started it”…well, get over it….cause they did.
JR-
Well of course it’s the majority’s fault. The bill was on the floor of the House. Bills don’t get to the floor of the House unless the majority wants them there. They perverted the committee system, as they often have in the past, to bring about that result.
I think people are growing tired of politicians gaming the system to either make themselves out to be better or the opposition out to be stupid/evil. They’re tired of back room deals and unethical profiteering from both parties. They tire of being told to be pragmatic and to accept the ugliness of humanity, because we simply can’t expect our elected officials to behave any better. Politics is the art of the possible? True, but what S.O.B. is defining the word “possible”. We can, and should expect more.
In this age of information, the public learns more and more of what vile things our representatives are willing to do. More than that though, when they see truly noble acts and rare glimpses of honest heroes, they understand that there is real hope and that they don’t have to put up with it. Sooner or later, there will be a higher standard, because the voters will demand it.
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