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House Speaker Bill Howell, R-Stafford, differs with Gov. Mark Warner on state tax reform. |
RICHMOND--If the General Assembly's 10-member panel studying tax reform recommends raising taxes in any way, they could face a one-man roadblock named Bill Howell.
Howell, as House speaker, is head of a conservative, largely antitax majority in the House.
He has been vocal about what he doesn't want to see from tax reform--tax increases--as well as about whom he thinks should lead the way: Gov. Mark Warner.
Howell has not attended the tax reform commission's two recent meetings, instead sending an aide to observe.
But his disapproval of the commission's recommendations could easily doom them. He takes many cues from his caucus, but caucus members also take cues from him.
And Howell doesn't think the House Republican caucus, nor the voters, will approve of some of the tax solutions that have so far been suggested.
In a meeting with the commission last week, Warner said it was unfair that Virginia doesn't tax services or Internet sales.
Some members of the commission, Republican and Democrat alike, seem to agree. But not Howell, who said Warner's statements simply proved what Republicans have been claiming for months: that Warner means to use tax reform to raise taxes.
"He certainly did raise the specter of generating new tax revenue from new sources, and I have some concerns about that," Howell said in an interview.
"I think a tax on services would be terribly inappropriate, and I think a tax on Internet sales is fraught with a lot of problems. At least, he's bringing them up and they will now be subject to discussion within our committee, and I wish he'd been a little bit more specific. If his purpose was not to talk about specifics before the election, he probably should not have gotten into specifics before the committee."
Howell spent much of the summer urging Warner to get out front on tax reform. He wanted the governor to lay out a package of proposals early so the General Assembly elections this fall could serve as a sort of referendum on them.
Warner resisted, saying he didn't want tax proposals trampled by the partisanship of elections.
Howell seems resigned to the idea that Warner will not offer a detailed plan before November. But the differing positions commission members have already expressed reaffirm Howell's belief that Warner should be the one crafting a tax package.
"There seem to be a lot of different opinions on where we should go. I think that reflects the problem that a legislative body has in coming up with a focused plan, and it comes back to why I think it's the executive's responsibility to come up with a plan that the legislature can then look at. But I guess that's not going to happen, and we're going to do the best we can."
Howell seems determined to oppose any reform proposals that would increase taxes. He said he prefers the phrase "no increased taxes" to the more amorphous "revenue neutrality" and said a stand against increased taxes "really may well be the focus" of the commission.
Raising some taxes and lowering others to offset it may not fly in Howell's House. Those whose taxes are raised will be angered, he said, and the commission--and the legislature--cannot operate in a vacuum.
"This isn't politics. We are elected to represent people. We're not elected to go down and say 'I don't care what the people think, this is what I'm going to do,'" Howell said. "It's incumbent on elected officials to try and echo the concerns of their people. I think people would reject the proposal of having to pay a sales tax when they go get a haircut."
The tax reform commission is allowed five meetings in which to put together a reform package for the 2004 session, but members have agreed to meet more frequently without compensation if necessary. In between meetings various members will hold subcommittee meetings to discuss specific tax reform issues. The date of the next full meeting has not been set.
