THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, February 4, 1995 TAG: 9502040324
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
Gov. George Allen accuses Democratic legislators of cowardice for killing his bills to cut taxes.
They should let the bills out of committee and onto the floor of the House of Delegates and state Senate, he argued.
But the best place to scotch a venomous snake is the first place you meet it. Democrats showed courage in slaying the foe forthwith.
In childhood, we heard a snake wouldn't die until sunset; and if, by some legislative ruse, the bill wriggles to the floor, Democrats, joined by Republicans, can do it in again.
From the git-go, the governor's idea for tax cuts was misguided.
To offset his proposed tax reductions, he called for severe cuts in the state budget that threatened not only the quality of life in the commonwealth but also life itself.
The cuts would have bled such vital services as schools and police, the ones Allen says he champions.
How could an astute, popular governor have gone so awry?
He asserts voters gave him a mandate; but, campaigning, he didn't mention tax cuts. He did pledge not to raise taxes, which was wise in view of high costs of his prison-building program and other demands.
He did not discuss tax cuts with Democratic leaders, and he caught some Republican elders by surprise when, after a mid-December conference of GOP governors in Williamsburg, he called for the cuts.
At that conference, celebrating their party's victory in taking Congress, GOP governors had huddled on ways to capture control of state legislatures, including the advocacy of tax cuts.
For a while, Virginia Democrats were flummoxed. They could not, in conscience, support a feckless spree of cuts in taxes and services that might throw Virginia into a tailspin.
Yet, if they opposed the tax cuts, they might lose their seats in next year's legislative races and leave both houses of the General Assembly in control of Republicans.
In a risky choice, the Democrats took heart and attacked the governor's program. And the people caught on that, in return for very modest tax relief, they would lose cherished state services.
There were troubling contradictions. While preaching the down-sizing of government, the governor had doubled the staff of his Super Cabinet to 81 - a palace guard, a superfluous layer of bureaucracy that had a hand in producing the policy that would traumatize government.
The governor, who opposes federal meddling in state affairs, sought to abolish the localities' business license tax, which would have forced them to raise local property taxes.
George Allen may learn that his first duty is not to advance his party or his own political future but to be governor of Virginia, enough these days to occupy any leader.
My apologies to snakes. They do only what nature intends for them to do and, unless trod upon, mind their own business. by CNB