Reality leaves Kaine all wet

In the chill before Christmas, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine was afflicted by tidings of joy from which he could not be dissuaded. Republicans, those slayers of sentiment, were discomforted despite the season. Kaine’s revenue projections for the next two years, they declared, were exceedingly cheery. The governor was stubbornly jocular. Skeptics across the aisle, he said, had made “goofy claims.”
Among them: revenue growth was unlikely to swell from 3.2 percent in fiscal year 2009 to 6.6 percent in fiscal 2010, as Kaine’s budget sages has prophesied. “Do they understand fiscal reality, or do they understand and they don’t care,” the governor sniffed in mid-December. Well, there you go then.
The surge in energy costs, the tumble of the housing market and slow employment growth proving sufficiently real after having been persistently evident nine months ago, the state’s finances have capitulated to cold facts in the fashion of Scrooge. The state’s budget could slip more than $1 billion into the red over the next two years. The cause, according to Kaine? Lower than expected revenues from retail and home sales. Oh.
Income tax revenues increased by just 1 percent from May to June, compared to 8 percent in the same period a year earlier. Sales tax revenues grew by 0.4 percent in the last quarter of this fiscal year compared to 7.5 percent in the previous fiscal year. Who knew? The economy only began to slide at the end of 2006.
So now, Kaine explains, budget cuts loom, which Republican killjoys had warned were needed in January when lawmakers and the governor began work on the biennial budget. To this, Democrats and Republicans alike beg to know more. How severe is the crisis? Kaine suddenly is unsure.
“It would probably be irresponsible of me to hit a number in advance,” said Kaine finance secretary Richard D. Brown. “Until we have that, I’m not going to speculate on the numbers.”
Perhaps, one Republican implied, Kaine should consult former Democratic Gov. Mark Warner. Confronted with a budget crisis in 2002, House Republican Leader H. Morgan Griffith of Salem recalled, Warner cited specific figures and cuts. “... The governor doesn’t have an action plan,” Griffith said.
But Kaine hears Washington calling. Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama returns to Virginia this week, quickening the pulse of Kaine who longs to be at the junior senator’s side in November. This might explain Kaine’s inability to speak with specificity, a malady with which Obama is familiar. Hard numbers pose hazards to sublime ambitions.
Whenever Kaine departs the governor’s office, he will assuredly do so in a spirit of giving, leaving his successor a sea of red. Obama, meanwhile, might find that in selecting a running mate Virginia’s deficit has become his own.