Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 13, 1992 TAG: 9201130224
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
BUDGET CUTS
IF LEGISLATORS doubted that Virginians' lives have been noticeably affected by state budget cuts, and that residents want a better answer than more budget cuts, a public hearing in Wytheville last week should have provided a wake-up call.More than 1,000 people (5,000 by the Wytheville mayor's estimate) showed up at the first state budget hearing held outside of Richmond. Some traveled 200 miles to get there. They drove west from Lynchburg, and east from Dickenson County. Coal miners came; teachers, law-enforcement officials, welfare recipients, lawyers, well-to-do businessmen and their wives.
Many waited hours for the chance to speak to the lawmakers for two-and-a-half minutes. The hearing, scheduled to go from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., went on until after 7 p.m. If many of those who'd signed up to speak hadn't finally given up and left, it would have lasted 22 hours!
The message to members of the General Assembly's budget committees was clear: Virginians have seen enough mangling of state programs and services. Gov. Wilder's proposals for even deeper cuts, outlined on statewide television last Wednesday night, may be OK by legislators, but they're not acceptable to citizens - not, anyway, to the testifiers who showed up in Wytheville Thursday. They were demonstrably upset.
Perhaps the most telling moment came when a legislator asked the assembled crowd if they'd be willing to support an increase in the state sales tax to help prevent further cuts in services. There was an almost unanimous show of hands. Some people jumped to their feet to say get on with it.
To the credit of the governor and the legislature, they did not resort easily or readily to a general tax increase. They have cut the budget deeply as their first recourse in the face of recession-wracked fiscal woes. They have handled relatively responsibly the revenue crisis afflicting almost every state; they've done better by their state than have many other governors and legislatures.
But fat and frills aren't on the chopping block now. Maybe some at the Wytheville hearing were state employees pleading special cases. But, increasingly, Virginians everywhere discern under the budget ax the marrow of government services on which they depend. And not only is current hurt spread; future progress is put at risk.
Wilder and lawmakers often have argued that the public is in no mood for a tax increase. They've assumed - without asking the public - that taxpayers would visit wrath on politicians who supported one. Up to now, they were probably right.
On Thursday last week, the politicians flew out of Richmond to Southwest Virginia for a refreshing change of altitude. They asked. What they got, perhaps, was what they've been waiting for: a change of attitude. It may prove a moment of truth.