Callahan Digs In His Heels
House Appropriations Committee chair Del. Vincent F. Callahan Jr. (R-Fairfax) said that general sales and income tax increases will not be in the compromise budget, drawing a sharp line in the sand.

Callahan, as I’ve pointed out several times the past few weeks, is usually a reasonable guy. He needs to hear from everyone in the state, and especially his constituents and contributors to his campaigns.

Get his contact info here. For the names of his campaign donors and amounts given, click here.

Rally Draws Shills
Anti-taxers held a rally yesterday in Richmond. One hundred-fifty people were there, as opposed to 700-800 who attended a rally supporting the Governor’s budget earlier this Assembly session. Here’s what the Richmond Times-Dispatch wrote: “Filling out the crowd were aides to GOP legislators as well as lawyers from the office of Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore, the party’s likely candidate for governor next year. Kilgore again urged a referendum on higher taxes.”

Your tax dollars at work – getting staff to attend a supposedly grassroots rally.

A small group opposing the referendum idea was also at the rally, prompting a referendum supporter to say, “We were here first. They’re distracting. They’re trouble. Get out of here. Get away, go.”

“We were here first”? Some folks need to learn to play nice in the sandbox.

Poll Shows Support for Tax Increases
AARP claims a poll it conducted found 70% of Virginians “opposed reducing state spending in general and specifically opposed cuts to education and health care,” according to a Virginian Pilot story. “Three-fourths of respondents supported higher taxes on cigarettes and corporations, and more than half supported raising income and sales taxes.”

Local governments also seem to support higher state taxes. The Prince George County supervisors asked the General Assembly to “adjust” taxes to provide more funds for schools and other local needs. Two Republicans led the way. Other local governments chiming in: The Isle of Wight supervisors officially berated local legislators who signed a no-tax pledge. “The Isle of Wight School Board and the Isle of Wight, Smithfield and Windsor Chamber of Commerce joined the Virginia Chamber of Commerce, the Hampton Roads and Peninsula chambers and the Virginia Association of Counties in criticizing these lawmakers.” Frederick County passed a resolution “urging the General Assembly to rework its tax plan.”

Meanwhile, even conservative House negotiators have seemingly embraced the Governor’s budget amount. Speaking of the idea of eliminating some sales tax breaks for businesses, Del. Phillip A. Hamilton (R-Newport News), said, “This is a way to get us closer to what the governor had.”

This true?
Christina Bellantoni, writing for the Washington Times, states: “[Budget negotiators] must come up with a compromise between the House’s $58 billion budget that meets the state’s basic needs with no general tax increase and the Senate’s $61.5 billion budget that gives more funding to all state services by raising taxes.”

All state services are going to increase? All? I wonder if there are not some services that are going to be cut.

Cheaters Beware
The General Assembly has decided to leave Virginia’s anti-sodomy law as is, awaiting a certain challenge to its prohibition on private sodomy acts, a clause that could be used to prosecute homosexuals.

But the bill also leaves on the books the “anti-fornication” Class 3 misdemeanor that prohibits cohabitation and private “lewd and lascivious behavior between unmarried adults.”

Cohabitation and sex between unmarried adults? Yes, Virginia, there is a Virginia.

$2 Million for Advertising; How Much for Schools?
A bill sure to be signed by the Governor allows Fairfax County to raise its hotel tax 2%, raising almost $7 million. Two million dollars must go for tourism marketing. But don’t count on the other $5 million to go for other needs. The county supervisors are thinking of using the savings to reduce property taxes.

…often means working at Wal-Mart.

The second richest man in the U.S. doesn’t think much of perks of wealthy folks. Today’s CNN Money quotes his letter to shareholders. He goes after Bush on tax cuts, including those for corporations, excessive CEO pay, “lapdog” boards of directors and mutual fund managers.

Maybe Warren’s the guy to fund his own 527 organization to beat Bush.

At Tim Porter’s blog he summarizes and supplements a Columbia Journalism Review post about reporters who call the usual suspects for quotes they know they’ll get, not for new insight.

“….reporters in general and political reporters in particular are facing the wrong direction: Toward the public figures and politicians instead of toward the public and the community.”

Anybody know where a guy can get a reliable biographical dictionary with the names of ALL the folks who wrote the great Tin Pan Alley songs? I received a book last Christmas called American Songwriters by David Ewen. It’s thorough in the biographies of the composers listed but limited to only the best known. I’d like something more complete. Email me.

I wrote last month about the habit of The Washington Post to put stories about Israelis killed in suicide attacks on the front page, while Palestinian deaths at the hands of the Israeli army are buried inside the paper. It happens again today. Fourteen Palestinians, including three children, were killed during an operation initiated by the Israelis. The story is on page A11.

In a response to my post last month, The Post’s ombudsman Michael Getler said what makes the front page is dependent on many factors, including the day’s major stories. That’s fair. Apparently today, more important than these 14 deaths were a story about the “car culture” catching on in China, a follow-up story to the Baltimore water taxi accident and another of what some think are The Post’s attempts to hype a book by one of its reporters.

Meanwhile, reporter Molly Moore describes the Israeli action with words such as:

“… one of the most deadly encounters in months in the Gaza Strip, where combat has intensified…”

“The ferocity of the fighters’ assault underscored a trend of increasingly organized and sophisticated tactics against Israeli troops and improved cooperation among militant organizations in the Gaza Strip….”

“Palestinian officials said they believed the militant organizations were combining and refining their resistance….”

So there seems ample evidence that this deadly attack is part of a larger trend story, which might warrant front page treatment, especially given the number of deaths and the fact that children were also killed.

Let’s see where the next suicide attack story is placed.

The Massachusetts teacher of the year said no, thank you, to Secretary of Education Rod Paige. Jeff Ryan said he didn’t go to an event in Washington to accept the award because Paige called the national teacher’s union a “terrorist organization.” Ryan also said he boycotted the event to protest the No Child Left Behind Act, calling it a “stealth tactic by the Bush administration to undermine pubic schools.”

Chicken and Egg?
The Virginia budget conferees are stuck before they begin. House members what to talk taxes first, saying you can’t decide on spending ‘til you know what you have to spend. Senate members say let’s decide what we want and need and then figure how much we need to raise.

The House uses the old argument about how government must live within its means, just like American families do. But it’s a poor analogy. Families, unlike governments, are usually trying to maximize their revenues. It’s the quest for a better life that determines their decisions. Most people are always looking for jobs with higher pay. It’s the nature of a career path. If not, or until they find the better job, they decide whether to live within their means or borrow. Basically, families make a fundamental decision about what life style they want and how much they’re willing to work and sacrifice to achieve it.

The same should be true for government. What do we want and how much are we willing to pay for it? How much revenue we have is arbitrary. We can raise taxes through the roof, if we want something bad enough or perceive a critical need. What we want should be the starting point. If what we want costs too much, we scale it back.

The Senators have the right approach.

Howell Changes His Mind – Again
I recommend Bill Howell as John Kerry’s running mate. The two of them are becoming infamous for changing their minds. The Virginia Speaker of the House has said throughout the General Assembly session that gas taxes – he called them “user fees” – were a possible solution to the revenue shortfall. But now that gas prices are rising, he says he’s undergone a “real conversion” and gas tax hikes are off the table.

Must Virginia’s Government Shut Down Without a Budget?
Jeff Schapiro of the Richmond Times-Dispatch says there may be a way around doomsday.

Gilmore Prevaricates
When Gov. Mark Warner is criticized for raising taxes after saying he wouldn’t during the campaign, he points out that he was told by former Gov. Jim Gilmore that the deficit was only a few hundred million when it actually was $3.8 billion. Gilmore can’t square his record with reality. Warren Fiske of the Virginian Pilot writes:

Gilmore, however, has a hard time proving Warner was fully aware of the state’s financial problems in October 2001, when Warner pledged not to raise taxes.
Newspaper clippings from that month say Gilmore’s advisers repeatedly declined to make any estimate of revenue shortfalls during a meeting with General Assembly budget writers.
When pressed, Gilmore says he didn’t have good numbers until that December – after the election. By then, the shortfall was estimated at $3.8 billion.

What about Gilmore’s own campaign error?

In 1997, he was elected on a pledge to end the car tax, telling voters it would cost $620 million a year. The full cost of the repeal is now estimated at $1.5 billion and has been a major drain on the budget.

“We used the best numbers that were available to an outsider,” he says. “But it doesn’t matter. Ending the car tax is still the right thing to do. It’s a great program. It helps people, and people thank me for it every day.”

Didn’t have “good numbers” or the “best numbers”? How about “lied.” It’s getting to be a GOP habit. Just weeks after the Medicare bill passed, President Bush said it would cost a third more than he led on during the Congressional debate on the bill. He didn’t have good numbers, either, i.e., he lied.

Anti-tax Movement Dead?
Fred Hiatt in The Washington Post wonders if the “no-tax hike ever” movement may be on its last legs or if honesty about taxes is forever lost on the campaign trail.

Is It the Macarena?
Barnie Day’s column is entitled “Anatomy of a Miscue: Doing the Budget Dance”

Virginia’s Right Wing College Gets Attention
The New York Times today has a story today on the Virginia college with only “six red brick buildings” but with a growing influence on U.S. politics. Think of it as the American equivalent of the fundamentalist schools of Islam.

Tobacco Break May Die
A Staunton News Leader editorial applauds House leaders for scuttling the Senate’s bill for a big tax break for Phillip Morris. But the bill may not be dead yet.

Earlier this week, a federal court said it would not overturn a Williamsburg registrar’s decision to block three William & Mary students from running for city council on the grounds that they were not city residents. But two of students still had the option of appealing to a circuit court, which they did. On Friday one student, who lives in Arkansas but pays in-state tuition because he is enlisted in the Virginia National Guard, was granted the right to register as a candidate. Another student was denied the same right because she did not adequately prove residency in Williamsburg while her parents live in Roanoke. The ACLU said it would appeal to the state Supreme Court on her behalf.

The third student had passed the deadline for appealing to the circuit court.

A fourth student was among the original student-politicians, but he opted to drop out of school. The registrar then approved his application to run for office.

You have to credit Repubicans, they don’t do subtlety.

First, party officials petitioned the Federal Elections Commission to rule that “527” groups, named after the section of the law under which they operate as “shadow” campaign organizations, were illegally spending money on ads critical of President Bush.

When the FEC didn’t rule that 527s had to desist (but did lay the groundwork for restricting them in the near future), Republican National Committee chief counsel Jill Holtzman wrote a letter (scroll down to the third story) to 250 TV stations with a thinly veiled threat that if the stations ran ads by MoveOn, a 527 group, stations could lose their licenses. Holtzman writes that stations must refrain from “illegal activity.”

Of course, the RNC, last I checked, doesn’t pass or enforce laws. They don’t get to decide what’s illegal. And the RNC hasn’t even asked the FEC for a ruling on the MoveOn ads. What the RNC is doing, quite blatantly, is intimidating stations. If they run the ads, they could get a call from FCC Chairman Michael Powell, the son of Secretary of State Colin Powell and a GOP puppet.

During the Democratic primary, MoveOn didn’t endorse a candidate. But it did and continues to criticize Bush. It produced a TV ad (go to “Child’s Play”) that mentions no Democratic candidate and has no voiceover. It simply shows a series of video shots of children working in adult jobs and ends with the on screen question, “Guess who’s going to pay off President Bush’s $1 trillion deficit?” The GOP successfully pressured CBS into refusing to run the ad, claiming it was “controversial.”

MoveOn makes no bones about its agenda. It is fiercely in the “anybody but Bush” corner. Should Kerry win the Democratic nomination, it will undoubtedly work for his election.

Under 527 rules, MoveOn can’t “coordinate” its campaign with the nominee’s. Campaign laws revolve, in part, around the definition of “coordinate.” I won’t pretend to explain, much less defend, the rules.

But it seems if we’re going to go after 527 groups, it’s a slippery slope. In fact, the little friction on that slope has led me to think that campaign finance reform is a good idea that can’t possibly be legislated. And maybe it shouldn’t.

If I were Bill Gates, I’d be spending a couple of billion to defeat Bush. And that should be my right. As long as I don’t break laws against lying on the airwaves or use coercion, bribery or blackmail, I should be able to spend as much as I want to influence the election. On election day, my money doesn’t mean anything to someone who has read newspapers and done the research necessary to cast an informed vote. It’s really not that hard to be voting literate. Those who claim that millions spent on TV ads unfairly biases an election are simply saying people are too stupid to know the difference between erectile dysfunction and getting the shaft.

The slippery slope of campaign reform gets more dangerous when the party in power tilts the angle through intimidation. Fortunately, a key member of the FEC is apparently poised to kicks the legs out from under those angling for censorship, at least temporarily.

And MoveOn announced it’s adding another $1 million to its current ad campaign.