Kaine’s plan is a burden

Employing a tactic of leftist politicos and street hustlers, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine pointed to a looming transportation apocalypse while extending government’s sticky mitts toward taxpayers’ back pockets Monday. He wants $1 billion in new taxes and fees for transportation. Without it, aging bridges will collapse in the fashion of Minneapolis, people will be imperiled in their cars as killer hurricanes rumble over clogged state highways and the commonwealth’s economy will wither as Northern Virginians are left for lost on congested roads turned wastelands.
Or so says the governor.
Thus emerges the necessity of increasing by 1 percent the state’s car title tax, by 150 percent the statewide property seller’s tax and by more than 25 percent vehicle registration fees. Otherwise, cue the spectral incantations of Col. Kurtz, rasping, “The horror ... the horror.”
The governor will state his case in a series of town hall meetings, including one in Staunton later this month.
For those who will listen, a bit of perspective: Virginia’s bridges, generally speaking, are not on the verge of tumbling to rubble. The state’s almost 21,000 spans and culverts are, for the most part, newer and in better condition than the rest of America’s. Fewer than one in 10 are rated poor. This is not to imply that hands are to be thrown toward the heavens and the work of repairs ignored, but rather to suggest that neither the sky nor state bridges are falling.
If anyone wants to get a look at bottlenecks fueled by people fleeing killer storms, consider interstates 75, 4 or 95 in Florida, a place frequented by hurricanes at a greater rate than the Old Dominion, or so rumor has it. The severity of congestion in Northern Virginia is plain enough. So why don’t localities in that corner impose the same taxes and fees that would have been levied under the ill-fated regional taxing authority plan rejected by the state Supreme Court? Here’s the answer: Local officials fear constituents’ wrath. Better, they say, that the rest of the state should shoulder the bulk of the burden.
Kaine eased off increasing the gasoline tax, recognizing as prices gush toward $4 a gallon that an option he had once touted is no longer palatable. People would be “very hard hit by a gas tax ... They view [gas] as a necessity of life,” he said. Real estate agents and auto dealers argue with obvious good reason that the same reasoning should apply to land and vehicle taxes.
Almost forgotten is the fact that the state will spend $560 million in the next fiscal year on transportation. Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell is making that point absent Kaine. The Republican gubernatorial candidate cites another fact, that Virginia’s transportation spending in 2007 reached a 22-year high, all without a tax increase. “[T]he governor’s plan relies on regressive taxes that place a disproportionate burden on lower- and middle-class citizens.”
That group would include people in the Shenandoah Valley, who would be forced to pay for benefits they would never or seldom reap. Let us speak on their behalf and resoundingly reject Kaine’s plan, which would compound the sting of an economic downturn that grows more oppressive with each trip to the pump.
Kaine rightly states that the reputation of the General Assembly will be at stake when lawmakers gather for a special session starting June 23 to consider transportation measures, including Kaine’s. House Republicans vow to plunge a dagger into the heart of new taxes and fees. We are counting on our elected representatives to do precisely that.
The people of the commonwealth have no choice but to winnow extra spending from their own budgets. When the hand of the government we feed reaches for our wallets, it should feel our bite.