Pick a number, any number. Reporters across the Commonwealth can’t seem to agree on how many “renegade” Republicans there are supporting HB5018, the tax plan that passed the House Finance Committee yesterday. Some say 17, others 18, and some say 17 to 19 members visited the Governor’s office to push for the compromise. Geez, is 19 too high a number for reporters to count to? Christina Nuckols of the Virginian-Pilot says there were 19 but one fell by the wayside.

Wonder what constituents of Allen L. Louderback of Luray, Mark Cole of Spotsylvania and John O’Bannon and Bill Janis of Henrico will think? All are opponents of tax increases but all were absent from the House Finance Committee yesterday when it voted to pass the tax bill. At the request of Speaker Howell, they stayed away to allow the tax bill to report out of committee. Will the Club for Growth challenge them in primaries?

Here’s what the Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star reported:

“Leadership had promised to get the bill to the floor, and I certainly cannot support it, so I was asked not to attend the meeting,” Cole said later.

Asked if he was OK with that approach, Cole answered, “not really.”

“It’s nearly a billion-dollar tax increase, and it’s the wrong way for us to go,” he added. “This is the wrong time to be raising taxes, period. I don’t think the House needs to be held hostage to a tax increase from the Senate or the governor.”

Del. Bobby Orrock, R-Caroline, did vote for Parrish’s bill in committee but said he will vote against it on the floor.

Louderback was also “conflicted”

Which brings us to the “Quote of the Day”: “There’s not a whole lot of profiles in courage on this one.” Del. R. Lee Ware Jr., R-Powhatan, who voted against the compromise bill.

Here’s the vote:
Yes: Harry J. Parrish, R-Manassas; Robert D. Orrock Sr., R-Spotsylvania; Joseph P. Johnson Jr., D-Abingdon; Kenneth R. Melvin, D-Portsmouth; Mitchell Van Yahres, D-Charlottesville; Franklin P. Hall, D-Richmond; Robert D. Hull, D-Fairfax; Vivian Watts, D-Fairfax; Stephen C. Shannon, D-Fairfax; Lynwood W. Lewis Jr., D-Accomac.

No: Harry R. “Bob” Purkey, R-Virginia Beach; Thelma Drake, R-Norfolk; R. Lee Ware, R-Powhatan; John J. Welch III, R-Virginia Beach; Samuel A. Nixon Jr., R-Chesterfield; Kathy J. Byron, R-Lynchburg; L. Scott Lingamfelter, R-Prince William; Timothy D. Hugo, R-Fairfax.

Not voting: Allen L. Louderback, R-Luray; Mark L. Cole, R-Spotsylvania; John M. O’Bannon III, R-Henrico; Bill Janis, R-Henrico.

In response, here’s what Governor Warner said:

“The bill offered by Delegate Parrish in its current form addresses the goals that I have laid out since the beginning of this process. It makes the tax system more fair, meets our core commitments in education, public safety and health care, and protects the commonwealth’s fiscal integrity. Combined with the decision by the Senate leadership to remove the new higher income tax brackets from the Senate proposal, passage of this bill by the House in its current form would be a breakthrough that, in my opinion, will lead to a meaningful compromise by all parties. I will continue to encourage the Senate to move as soon as possible to reach a final budget agreement.”

Republicans duel in the press here and here

The anti-tax lobby is cranking it up but UVA professor Larry Sabato thinks it might backfire. (Link to Virginian Pilot story may be bad.)

More polls, more confusion.

Good article today in The Washington Post about Speaker Bill Howell’s style.

The Post also reports traffic gridlock has no end.

Del. Harry J. Parrish (R-Manassas) will answering questions online 1:00 this afternoon at www.washingtonpost.com. You can submit questions ahead of time here. At 1:00 go to www.washingtonpost.com, scroll to the bottom of the web page and click on “Virginia Legislature” under the Live Online section.

From Against All Enemies:

Before lifting off again [in Air Force One on 9/11], Bush taped a statement to be broadcast only after he was airborne. “Make no mistake. The United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts.” At this point, they hardly seemed cowardly.

Maher lost his TV show for saying the same thing. Say what you will about the suicide terrorists, they are not cowardly.

The right is making it up again:

“There’s going to be a compromise in the next couple of weeks. It’s just a matter of how and when,” [Del. Chris Saxman, R-Staunton] said.
“That’s not saying that the House is going to just cave in and say, ‘Here’s a half-cent on the sales tax, and an increase in the cigarette tax,’ and that’s it, without some movement from the Senate. They haven’t been moving at all. We’ve offered six compromises, but it’s not a compromise if there isn’t something coming from the other side,” Saxman said.

The Senate hasn’t moved at all? You wonder why reporters don’t challenge such statements instead of just regurgitating them. Even though I cringe sometimes when Jim VandeHei of The Washington Post picks on pols I like, I respect that he isn’t hesitant to follow an absolute lie with something like “But that isn’t true.”

When superintendents say things like this, you know the times they are a-changin’. Look for more political action out of the Roanoke education activists.

“Honk if You Support Quality Schools.”

Lie, damn lies and polls. At the end of this Washington Times story, read how several polls gets conflicting results. A note: Most of the state’s press headlined their stories today to reflect the failure of the House Finance Committee yesterday to pass the “compromise” tax bill, while the Times focuses on the failure of the continuing resolution to pass.

Maybe we’ll see more moderate GOPers challenging the right wing, instead of the other way around. I can’t find the online link to this story, but here’s a brief portion of it, courtesy of the Whipple clips:

LOCAL GOP LEADERS PUSH HOUSE TO BACK TAX INCREASE

By Christina Nuckols
The Virginia-Pilot
Monday, April 05, 2004

RICHMOND — A group of 35 Republican local government leaders are sending a letter this week to House Speaker William J. Howell, R-Stafford, asking him to support a tax increase.

The letter does not endorse a specific tax hike proposal. Local GOP officials do, however, say a budget endorsed by the House of Delegates that includes no general tax increases does not adequately provide for schools, jails and other services.

Three of the Republicans signing the letter are from South Hampton Roads: Virginia Beach Treasurer John T. Atkinson, Beach Councilman Ron A. Villanueva and Suffolk Mayor E. Dana Dickens III.

Atkinson, you may recall, bought an ad looking for moderate Republicans to run against his local right-wingers.

Everybody’s looking for something for nothing: “They spoke against tax increases, against cutting library hours, against cutting senior recreation programs, against cutting nonprofit funding and for finding more money to fund public safety and night bus service.”

And the fratricide continues in Loudoun.

Nine inches of new powder at A-Basin in Colorado on Tuesday and my computer problems are fixed. A software glitch destroyed the cable modems of me and 11,000 other Cox customers. And I’m back in the Commonwealth, so life is good again.

First thing I see is that a compromise tax bill passed the House Finance Committee, but some House Republicans aren’t happy with the Governor’s statement of support. I’m not sure what they’re complaining about. It seems, unfortunately, he’s signed onto it and the Senate has indicated its willingness to drop the higher income taxes. If this is a compromise, the Senate got the short end of the stick. HB5018 raises less than $1 billion bi-annually, whereas the Senate’s original proposal raised $4 billion. So we’re hardly halfway. Which means we may end up without true tax reform or enough money to solve the long-term problems.

More later…

Technical problems are following me. I’ve not been able been able to read clips statewide for most of the past couple of days, but from what I have been able to read and have heard from some suggests we might be coming into crunch time. Who will blink and how hard?

With GOP conservatives trying hard to take the heat off themselves, some have said they’d support raising the sales tax ½-cent. But that is far from halfway towards the Senate plan. And after a couple weeks of unrelenting pressure from citizens, professional groups and the press to pass a sustainable budget, I don’t see why Senate GOPers and Dems need to settle for that.

The ½-cent increase is only a band-aid. We’ll be back next year trying to figure out how to raise revenues again. Without my files with me in too-warm-for-great-skiing Colorado, I’m relying on memory: A half-cent sales tax brings in about $700 million. The Senate had already compromised by cutting about $1.6 billion in new transportation revenues and now have a budget with a tax increase of $2.2 billion.

If conservatives stick to the ½-cent increase as the only statewide tax they’d endorse, maybe a compromise is to give counties the same taxing authority as cities and towns have and let them have either a ½-cent sales-tax or income tax surcharge authority. The key would be to allow the localities to keep ALL the tax revenue raised by the optional tax.

Such a compromise allows conservative delegates a chance to pass the buck while they claim credit for passing a budget. And passing the buck seems to be the best the GOP can offer is terms of governance.

But that compromise may run into the fear some have of increasing disparity in local services, especially in schools where a court challenge could prove problematic. Folks in less prosperous areas where a local add-on tax isn’t affordable or brings in too little won’t like being left farther behind. But localities willing to raise their own taxes won’t want to see too much distributed elsewhere.

So it seems there are a lot of folks who still need to keep screaming. The ½-cent is too little too late.

I’m screaming as loud as I can from the mountains. I hope to hear more than my own echo.

And I hope with my return, the techno gremlins are gone.

Sorry for the late post of yesterday’s news, let alone today’s. My ‘net was down most of yesterday and today I traveled to Colorado. Pray for snow; the flowers are blooming

“I want new taxes. It’s not easy to say. It stinks. But I do,” said a voter at the Madison Heights meeting. Read about the meeting here and here.

The same might be said of Arlington residents.

The Club for Growth has picked up the lie that Jerry Kilgore started about the impact of the Senate’s plan on Virginia residents. The organization said it has talked to Del. Ben Cline (R-Amherst), the first termer about challenging Republican Sen. Emmett Hanger (Rockingham). But Cline, who has been rocked by the support for higher taxes he’s seen at town meetings in his area, said he’s not talked to the club. Let’s see, a falsehood about the Senate’s plan and then about who said what. I guess the Club for Growth learned how to lie from the Bush administration, and they are about as good at it as the Bushies are.

It appears Del. Tim Hugo (R-Fairfax) who likes to position himself as a moderate, is turning out to be another right-wing nut case. See today’s Washington Post story.

Jeff Schapiro of the Richmond Times-Dispatch says Gov. Warner might be subject to lawsuits if there’s a budget shutdown. Jerry Kilgore is already preparing one.

The Washington Times surveys the impact of a budget impasse on Northern Virginia localities.

Norfolk State University is raising tuition 16 percent.

Some Hampton Roads lawmakers, instead of running for public office, are now running away from the public.

The Washington Post says the radical Republicans are shirking.

The Roanoke Times says the “radical Republicans” interim budget idea is “terrible.”

The Staunton News Leader calls them “ideologues” and says there’s “no nice way to put this.”

The Virginian Pilot takes on No Child Left Behind.

Get this: Two first-time supervisors in Frederick County voted against increasing property taxes. One said, “He still is learning the budget,” and the other said, “He had not analyzed the budget enough to find precise places to cut.” Blessed are the ignorant for they shall be elected.

Pete Angelos likes one Virginia city, but all I can say about this is, Fork No!

By a five to one margin, speakers at last night’s town hall meeting in the most conservative area of Fairfax County spoke in favor of increased funding of the state budget. Many spoke specifically in favor of the Senate’s plan, with a few asking that transportation funding be restored.

Read More…