POLITICIANS DEVISE WAYS TO GET TO YOUR MONEY

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, January 23, 1992                   TAG: 9201230166
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: THOMAS BOYER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Short
POLITICIANS DEVISE WAYS TO GET TO YOUR MONEY
From coal companies to pet grooming salons, from families with six-figure incomes to motorists who get their cars washed, every Virginian would be touched by the nearly two dozen tax-increase bills now being considered by the General Assembly.
Led by Senate Majority Leader Hunter Andrews, D-Hampton, senior Democrats in the Senate have proposed more than $300 million in new taxes. In the House of Delegates, rural legislators have proposed raising the state's income tax and sales tax.
These have come on top of Gov. Douglas Wilder's proposal to levy $30 million a year in new taxes on hospitals and doctors - costs medical providers say they would pass to their patients.
Andrews joined an increasing, but still small, group of legislators who say tax increases are inevitable if the state is to avoid painful cuts in such areas as higher education, mental health programs and libraries.
"Budget cuts have hurt services, and they have hurt people," Andrews told senators Wednesday. "After budget cuts of over a billion dollars, Virginia faces a fundamental choice. We can reduce government activities in a substantial, permanent, unalterable way, or we can examine revenue options."
Senate Republican Leader Joseph Benedetti, R-Richmond, said GOP lawmakers prefer more budget cuts to considering tax increases.
The assembly's GOP caucus also released a statement saying GOP lawmakers "will vote no in a virtual bloc" if Wilder's hospital tax plan gets to a floor vote.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB