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Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine unveils his transportation plan last week in Richmond. |
GEORGE ALLEN, a superior Vir-
Gov. Tim Kaine isn't Gov. Allen.
To solve the top public problem of today's Virginia--a transportation system inadequate to the demands placed on it by growing vehicular use--Mr. Kaine first, after a week or two of bluster, swallows a Rube Goldberg scheme concocted by never-tax-nuthin' House Republicans. Then, when that contraption begins to fall to pieces (budget surpluses unrealized, bad-driver superfines unaccepted, special regional taxing authorities judged unconstitutional ), proposes a non sequitur of an alternative that he then all but begs lawmakers to change ("I encourage the legislature to kick the tires and talk about it.") When hardball is called for, Mr. Kaine throws up a beach ball and invites everyone wearing Coppertone to swat it around.
The shortcomings of Mr. Kaine's plan merely start with its specifics.
To reach the $1 billion-per-year new road-revenue desideratum, he would raise by 1 percent the state motor-vehicle titling tax, add 25 cents per $100 of value to the property-seller's tax, and tack on $10 to the cost of every vehicle registration. The objections to the first two elements are macroeconomic: With a recession on, substantially jacking up the cost of a big-ticket item such as a car, truck, or van will lead to fewer purchases of such items--perhaps, like the Glen Campbell character in "True Grit," Mr. Kaine believes "the fewer horses, the fewer horse thieves"--aggravating the slowdown, delaying recovery, and crimping government revenues. And the grantor's tax? Home sales, which of late have taken it on the chin, usually lead the economy out of bad times. They may again in Virginia if not hamstrung with higher fees. Only the $10 registration jump is benign.
VIRGINIANS ONLY
Details aside, the Kaine plan is conceptually unsound. It sticks only Virginians, and it is uncoupled from the source of the state's mobility woes--the use of Virginia roads by motor vehicles. Automobile ownership per se doesn't wear a micrometer of asphalt from a highway or require that an interstate be widened the thickness of vermicelli.
The heart of any statewide transportation reform should be an increase in the gas tax, unraised since 1986, which is the pluperfect "user fee." A group of Democratic state senators led by Richard Saslaw, D-Alexandria, recognizes this and is pushing a six-cent increase phased in over six years at the rate of a penny per year. While this is too little too slow--five years from now, the gas tax would be generating only $250 billion per year in new revenue, a quarter of the sum annually needed--at least Senate D's are barking up the right tree.
As to cavils that any added gas tax would hurt the poor, Mr. Saslaw tells us that the added cost per year to the average motorist would equal that of one Big Mac Meal. We'll take his word for it. The greater point is that the poor, who tend to drive less fuel-efficient cars, suffer financially more than anyone from congested roads that lengthen trip times. Legislative friends of the needy--as Republicans reflexively pronounce themselves whenever anyone says "tax"--also could adjust the Earned Income Tax Credit to soften any blow at the pump.
Unlike George Allen and the GOP in the '90s, Tim Kaine and the Democrats today flounder in policy, hence political, disarray. Their message so far is babble. Indeed, Republicans can count themselves blessed that they aren't running, to quote Will Rogers, against an organized political party. But Democratic ineptitude likely won't suffice to save some local GOP delegates (see tomorrow's editorial) from the expulsive wrath of a disgusted electorate.
