THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, January 21, 1995 TAG: 9501200025
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A12 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
SOURCE: Beth Barber
LENGTH: Medium: 90 lines
Gov. George Allen gave a speech last week which, if the latest gubernatorial election is any indication, reflected what most Virginians want to hear. For examples:
Will our state continue down the path of bigger government, increased spending and taxes, deepening dependency and declining values? Or will we make government smaller and more focused on core governmental duties - allowing you to keep more of your hard-earned money?
Decades of government based on this (spending) philosophy have brought us stifling regulation and burdensome taxes, mediocre education and declining job opportunities, excuses for criminal behavior and a welfare-state mentality that has taught a generation of Americans to depend on others for what we want and to blame others for what we lack.''
What Virginians have seen in recent years is their government spending more, but delivering less - less of the things that really matter, like good schools, safe streets, more and better jobs.
All of this is a summons to the governor's side for the like-minded. But it's also a call to arms for those who remain convinced that government must do more with more, not more with less, and certainly not less with less.
You'd think, then, that the administration would be prepared to refute its critics. Instead, it has sat back and watched them flood the citizenry with charts and hardship stories with dire implications: For want, for instance, of the $46 a year some figure the governor's tax cut will save the average family of four, the hungry will starve, the young remain uncolleged and unsymphonied, and the criminal miss miraculous rehabilitation.
OK: $46 is too piddling a tax cut to matter to most families. It doesn't stop the increase in state spending, only reduces its rate of growth far more than any Democrat has. So why pursue it? Because it's a small shot across the budget bow in a battle against ever more expensive and intrusive state government and in favor of alternative solutions to recurrent problems.
What if the governor pointed out that this ``family of four'' - and, please, the ``families'' of one or two adults - already pay at least half the cost of other Virginians' higher education? What if he envisions tax cuts big enough that families can pay more for whatever higher education they choose to pursue?
What if he demanded that K through 12 public schooling, for which taxpayers already pay in full, provide the basic literacy and vocational training that enable students to earn a living after high school?
What if he asked why three area cities that spend some $500 million on daily schooling can't find $47,500 for a program that helps low-income and minority students go to college?
What if he gave the middle class some of the same choices of charitable donation as the rich? The Democratic elite, some of whom could wipe out deficits in arts budgets with a personal check, have their pri-or-i-ties for spending tax money: people and pursuits that don't support themselves. Let the self-supporting non-elite decide for themselves how much of their money to devote to feeding the hungry and playing Verdi.
What if he gave jail and prison administrators the power which they do not now have to require that inmates pursue literacy, job training and, if needed, substance-abuse treatment, beginning with sufficient security in prisons and jails to keep all drugs out?
What if Allen could say that his tax cut would in time actually leave more money in Virginians' wallets and cash registers and generate more revenues for the state?
What if he forced his Democratic critics to say how much out of whose pockets they'll have to pick to keep increasing state spending?
What if the governor of this low-tax, wealthy state charted how the more a legislature taxes the citizenry, the less wealthy the citizens, and eventually the state, become?
The governor already can make his case, and more. Whether the administration's strategy of non-reply to its critics is deliberate or born of inexperience, it's dumb. The naysayers are loaded for bear. The administration fires off a sharp remark here and there.
No question, there's little point in the Republicans' wooing Democrats determined to give them no quarter, much less $2 billion in tax cuts. Virginia Democrats aren't as fat-cat, sassy and spendthrift as national Democrats, but they share some of the hubris that cost their brethren Congress: They demand to be granted the courtesies, authority, privilege and slack they have long denied others. They demand that others answer questions they won't. They demand that Republicans remodel in a month or a year the Rube Goldberg government Democrats jerry-built over decades. They pass off damage control as reform, and spin control as debate.
The Democrats could lose that way.
The Republicans could lose this way: by neglecting to spot and repair the pocks a barrage of criticism can pound in their public support. MEMO: Ms. Barber is an associate editor of the editorial page. by CNB