BY CHELYEN DAVIS
Republicans yesterday continued their criticism of Democratic gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds' willingness to raise taxes for transportation, and called on other Democratic candidates to say whether they agree or not.
House Speaker Bill Howell, R-Stafford, and other Republicans held a conference call with reporters to discuss Deeds' comments on transportation revenues.
Deeds has said he'd be open to raising certain taxes, including the gas tax, to fund road improvements. The statement, made last week in a Washington Post op-ed, came as little surprise. Deeds has supported gas tax increases in past years as the General Assembly wrangled over how to come up with new revenue for transportation, although the op-ed was more specific than his previous campaign statements.
Howell has regularly opposed raising the gas tax. Yesterday he called it "a very regressive tax which impacts people who can least afford to pay it the most."
The gas tax has remained a flat 17.5 cents per gallon since 1986.
Howell said the current recession makes this an even worse time to raise the gas tax. He said getting another $1 billion in revenue, a figure Deeds has mentioned, would require raising the tax about 20 cents a gallon.
"I just think it's the wrong message to be sending, it's the wrong economic policy," Howell said.
The Republican candidate for governor, Bob McDonnell, has a long list of things he'd do to funnel more money into transportation, without raising taxes.
Democrats point out that some of McDonnell's proposals are rehashes of ideas that have failed in the legislature in the past.
Howell said that may be so, but that McDonnell's plan is specific and Deeds' is not.
"Some of [McDonnell's proposals] haven't met with success in past General Assemblies, although I must say several of Bob's proposals have passed in the House to be killed in the Senate," Howell said. "Hopefully we'll be able to work some sort of coalition this time to come up with approval of that."
One such McDonnell proposal is privatizing state-run ABC stores. Howell said he'd have to see a bill but hinted that he'd support it, as long as the bill restricted "liquor stores on every corner with big garish neon lights."
Not mentioned in the press conference but present in a couple of Republican Party press releases lately was a reference to state Sen. Edd Houck. Houck recently sent out a newsletter to constituents praising Gov. Tim Kaine for not proposing tax increases to deal with plummeting state revenues, and Republicans say it's evidence Houck disagrees with Deeds on the gas tax.
For the record, Houck said, he still believes the state needs to increase the gas tax.
Also yesterday, McDonnell himself and lieutenant governor candidate Bill Bolling held another conference call with the press to discuss their proposals to put more limits on the state budget's growth.
They said they would push for rules requiring state agencies to justify, every budget year, what they're spending money on, and to prove the dollars are going to a productive use.
They also want Virginia to switch its budget cycle to odd years. As it is, state lawmakers write a two-year budget in even-numbered years; in the odd years they just adjust the budget they wrote the year before.
But the way it lines up with the four-year terms of governors, governors write a two-year budget right before they leave office, and the new governor has less chance to put his stamp on it.
McDonnell and Bolling said switching the two-year budget to odd-numbered years would let new governors have more influence over the budget.
The two also support an increase in the cap on how much money the state can put into its "rainy day" reserve fund. Currently the cap is 10 percent; they want to push it to 15 percent, and a constitutional amendment to do so already passed once in this past year's legislature.
Deeds responded with a press release saying Virginians "have no reason to trust" McDonnell on fiscal responsibility because McDonnell opposed a 2004 tax package that Democrats credit with saving the state's triple-A bond rating.
Chelyen Davis: 540/368-5028
Email: cdavis@freelancestar.com