McAuliffe, a McLean resident and former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, said that he would not raise taxes while the economy is in a recession. “You don’t raise taxes in a down economy,” he said.
So what ever happened to that guy?
In the wake of reckless spending, a botched Medicaid expansion effort that created a crisis and then magically resolved it with the stroke of a pen (good ol’ executive orders… how did democracy ever work without ’em?!) only to turn around and find Virginia on the brink of recession — Governor Terry McAuliffe has a plan.
Rob Peter. Pay Paul.
The method to the madness? Roll back Virginia’s car tax relief, the cornerstone of former Governor Jim Gilmore’s conservative legacy and a popular relief program hailed as a model for Virginia campaigning. McAuliffe is cited as being “open” to the idea, but that’s all code for “yeah, let’s make that happen.”
It’s no secret why the tax-and-grab crowd wants the tax hike. No crisis should go to waste, and a $322 million budget gap is a great opportunity to steal from local governments to pay for state largess — a practice known in many localities as “local aid to the Commonwealth” as a derisive reversal of state aid to localities, roughly defined as any monies cut to local governments to aid in their operation (e.g. education).
Never mind for a moment that education is a state responsibility, enshrined in the state constitution, where the state is mandated to provide a free and quality education across the Commonwealth. The bottom line here is that McAuliffe and the tax-grabbers have one objective in mind: rollback the car tax, grab what they can now, and force local governments to raise their real estate taxes in response. After all, every locality is a political subdivision of the Commonwealth — so localities and working families just gotta do more with less.
Of course, the Richmond Times-Dispatch has something to say about that:
In short, the notion that the commonwealth is short of funds — and that the car-tax cut bears much of the blame — is nonsense. What’s more, Virginia just enacted a tax hike as part of a major transportation package. The state gasoline tax is set to rise again soon as a result. And members of the General Assembly already want even more?
The car-tax cut is not the only one they’ve been eyeing. Some have set their sights on the land-preservation tax credit. Again, there are good policy reasons to revisit all such tax breaks. It might even make sense to eliminate them — but only if lawmakers lower general tax rates at the same time, to make the changes revenue-neutral. The last thing taxpayers need in this economy is another hit to their wallets.
In the coming days you will hear legislators complain about how much the tax breaks cost the state. Such a mindset reveals the root of the problem. Lawmakers think of tax relief as an expense they have to meet. To the citizens they ostensibly serve, however, a tax cut doesn’t cost money — it saves them money. Legislators forget that point at their peril.
Ask any local elected official — “local aid to the Commonwealth” this year has been a punch to the throat. For Richmond to even consider scaling back property tax reimbursements to localities means one thing and one thing alone: regressive tax hikes on working families. How much longer before we have to hear about “devolution” of state transportation again?
Let’s face it — the slow dismantling of the legacies of Governor Allen and Governor Gilmore is on in earnest. Local governments shouldn’t have to land on these types of grenades… and McAuliffe is probably the least capable person to understand the relationship between Richmond and her localities (or worse, he does understand it but simply doesn’t care).
The real solution involves a lot more political backbone than the governor and his tax hiking ciphers (thank you, D.J. McGuire) are willing to offer. Everyone knows the relationship between Richmond and her localities is antiquated and broken. Everyone knows that school funding is the constitutional responsibility of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Everyone knows that the property tax is one of the most regressive forms of taxation known to mankind. Everyone knows that Richmond’s litany of unfunded mandates on localities only complicates these matters — and that a good number of them can and ought to be removed.
…but who cares when there’s an opportunity to move on a crisis?
Throwing money at the problem doesn’t work. Reform does. Until there is some sort of meaningful structured reform that benefits Virginia’s working families, there’s not a reason in the world the General Assembly ought to budge on the car tax reimbursement.
After all, even Terry McAuliffe knows you shouldn’t raise taxes in a down economy. Just ask Terry McAuliffe.
