ROANOKE TIMES 

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

DATE: TUESDAY, January 17, 1995                   TAG: 9501200056
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

A DEBATE ABOUT VIRGINIA'S FUTURE

ONE THING'S for sure: Gov. George Allen's budget proposals, including cuts in spending and taxes and increased funding for prison construction, are a hot topic. For our Readers Forum feature, we solicited opinions on Allen's plans - and received close to a hundred letters in response. A selection appears on today's Commentary Page; we'll print some more tomorrow.

Not just the number of responses but their breadth and depth suggest that a lot of people see something significant at stake in the governor's budget amendments. Some (including a majority of those who responded to our query) find fault with his proposals, others admire them. But most if not all the discussion evinces a sense of changing priorities and direction, a renewed focus on the role of government, a debate about Virginia's future that transcends opinions about this or that spending or tax cut.

Those supporting Allen's efforts seem generally to combine an eagerness to reduce government (``Can't churches pick up this responsibility?") with resentment against taxpayer-funded programs that benefit someone else (``We're so overloaded with special programs for the special-needs people").

Those opposing Allen's proposals generally combine appreciation for spending items on the cutting block (``states leading the way in economic development are those that invested the most in education") with fears about long-term consequences (``at some point down the road Virginians will have a tremendous bill to pay").

But no one on either side seems to dismiss the prospect that Allen's proposed budget amendments, one way or another, will have an enduring impact. The governor's plans may even have helped disabuse most of his supporters of the notion, popularized in the phrase "waste, fraud and abuse," that taxes and government programs can be cut sharply without affecting anyone but a few bureaucrats.

As Allen made clear in his State of the Commonwealth address last week, he's not trying to claim his proposals are minor tinkering or free of consequences. He wants to take money away from government and give it back to Virginians. With prisons the biggest exception, he wants to define the value of more activities by whether people would spend their own money on them, not by whether government would spend someone else's money.

As such, Virginia may enjoy during this General Assembly session a debate not just about whether taxes are popular (they tend not to be), but also about the value of various government services. The Readers Forum responses are one indication among many that this debate is being engaged, reassuringly, not just by a few whose immediate livelihoods or pet projects are threatened, but by many who are prepared to consider anew the role of government in their lives.

Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1995 


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