Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, February 7, 1995 TAG: 9502090024
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The context was all wrong.
The timing was off, for one thing. This is a "short" session, theoretically devoted to emergency items and to items deferred from the previous year's "long" session. The spending cutbacks proposed by Allen were in appropriations previously made, appropriations that recipients plan around and should be able, within reason, to depend on.
Recessions and revenue shortfalls can force mid-biennium retreats, and changes at the margins are always appropriate. But the governor's proposed cutbacks this year aimed either to shunt substantial sums to other uses or to offset tax-cut proposals that nobody outside top administration officials knew were coming until late last year.
Moreover, the tax-cut proposals came as the commonwealth (a) plans to take on new debt for prison construction while underestimating the associated long-term operating costs, (b) faces the likelihood of a diminished flow of federal funds, and (c) has only recently emerged from recession-induced retrenchment of state government that reinforced Virginia's position as a low-tax state but at some cost to such principles as higher-education accessibility.
The political context didn't fit, either.
Even Republican legislators complain they were given little warning. Consultation with such coordinating agencies as the State Council of Higher Education was remarkable for its absence. Presumably unintended consequences of some of the proposals quickly became evident. (As compensation for eliminating the business gross-receipts tax, taxpayers in rural Southwest Virginia should subsidize local government in Fairfax County?)
All the above suggests a hastily formulated package, perhaps one barely considered until after the GOP victories in the November congressional elections. That Virginia Democrats - who in 1994 gave Allen most of what he wanted on parole reform and on the tax settlement with federal retirees - refused to go along this time may yet work against them in this year's legislative elections. But at the moment, any judgment that Virginians have the same attitude toward state taxes and spending as toward federal taxes and spending seems mistaken.
Finally, the economics didn't fit.
The state budget has tripled since 1980; even so, Virginia remains a low-tax state. How? Adjust for inflation and population growth, and the budget growth drops to less than 35 percent - only about half the after-inflation percentage growth since 1980 in Virginia's per-capita personal income.
That the state budget didn't rise as fast as personal income is one reason that personal income grew. Another reason, though, was the provision of state services in areas where Allen sought a new round of cuts: higher education, public education, community mental-health services, museums, economic-development projects, police funds for localities. State-budget growth ought to bestir hard thinking, not indiscriminate denunciation and ill-conceived tax and funding cuts.
Keywords:
GENERAL ASSEMBLY 1995
by CNB