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Beltway berserkers

If measured by what they pay in state and local taxes combined, Virginians are far from overtaxed.

Date published: 4/15/2004

A treatment for taxophobia: The facts

DOES BILL CARRICO know how much trouble he's in? Beltway ideologues plan to run primary opponents against the Grayson County delegate and 16 other Republican House rebels (Mr. Carrico, ironically, lives in the community of Independence) who cracked the state budget deadlock by backing a half-cent jump--to a grand nickel on the buck--in the sales tax.

Granted, the anti-tax Norsemen until lately would have had trouble finding, let alone swooping down on, Grayson County, in Southwest Virginia, or anyplace in the state much south of the Metro Blue Line. But recently they've unfurled their maps and ventured all the way down I-95 to Richmond to harry GOP lawmakers who believe in public investment. Too bad, then, that one of their own crew--the conservative, D.C-based Tax Foundation--has drilled a hole in the bottom of their longship.

In a new report, which ranks state and local tax burdens as a percentage of income in the 50 states, the foundation puts Virginia at No. 37--down a notch since 1999. "Over the past 14 years," adds the foundation's Web site, "Virginia's tax burden has consistently been among the lowest in the nation." State and local taxes, the low-tax advocacy group figures, take 9.3 percent of Virginians' income, versus a national average of 10 percent.

This datum, based largely on federal reports and echoing the findings of the nonprofit Federation of Tax Administrators, helps clear up a debate between GOP anti-tax zealots and their conservative brethren (that is, Republicans who would conserve Virginia's civic resources and its manifold reputation for excellence). The former claim that Virginia is already a borderline high-tax state and that the revenues sought by the Senate ($2.4 billion over two years) would make us the New York of the South. The latter argue that the Old Dominion's levies are low and that spending what's needed to boost and maintain the state's educational, health, and transportation assets would leave our tax load still moderate.

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Date published: 4/15/2004