Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, December 21, 1994 TAG: 9412220034
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A14 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
His proposals would, however, have consequences - some of them serious, and not only for special interests or in other people's lives.
Governments err, it is popular to note these days, when they act as if money they would "lose" from tax cuts is theirs. It isn't. It's the taxpayers'. Governments that neglect to remind themselves often enough of this fact may receive special instruction from voters.
Taxpayers, though, also should know that government isn't merely massive bureaucracy, waste and fraud. Useful services - public education, paved highways, waste disposal, law enforcement and the like - creep into its work often enough, anyway, to have afforded Oliver Wendell Holmes a permanent place in famous-quotations books with his observation that "taxes are what we pay for civilized society."
In Virginia, civilization comes relatively cheap. In combined state and local tax burden, the commonwealth ranks 46th among the 50 states. (Absent a major oil strike on public lands, it will be tough to beat 50th-place Alaska.) Over the past four years, in response to an economic slowdown, most state-agency budgets have been reduced by more than 30 percent. Government excesses crying out to be disciplined at the federal level are not nearly so evident in Virginia.
Still, Allen wants his tax cuts and prison initiative, each carrying a $2 billion price tag. Fortunately, because the state must balance its operating budget, consequences of the governor's proposed choices are easier to discern than if deficits could obscure the implications until a later payment-due day.
Not that all consequences would be immediately visible. Some of the most important would be gradual and long-term. No one should imagine that cutting state support for community anti-poverty efforts, public schools, higher education, local law enforcement and various cultural institutions - all of which Allen proposes in his budget package - would bear only trivially on Virginia's future.
The governor's support of prison construction fulfills a campaign pledge. But why is he also so eager to cut taxes in a low-tax state?
One possible explanation is that if he goes before the American people as, say, a GOP vice-presidential candidate, he'd like to be able to boast that he cut taxes in his home state. Too, there's the next round of state legislative elections to consider. Allen's party may hope to win the General Assembly in part by telling Virginia voters: (1) Don't forget we're the ones who gave you that Christmastime tax cut, or (2) we tried to stuff your stockings with goodies, but those tax-and-spend Democrats insisted on lumps of coal.
Such speculation misses, however, a potentially instructive benefit of Allen's budget proposals. There is genuine public interest in, and in a lot of cases good cause for, downsizing government. But too often this option has been touted not as a choice with consequences, but as a fantasy benefit devoid of impact on anyone or anything except malevolent politicians and entrenched bureaucracy.
Virginians, as well as their state representatives, have an interesting chance now to weigh the value of what they get for their taxes. We should take full advantage of the opportunity.
by CNB