Western Va. lawmakers criticize Kaine’s transportation plan

By Ray Reed

Published: May 12, 2008

Rural areas wouldn’t benefit a whole lot from the almost $1 billion of new taxes for transportation that Gov. Timothy M. Kaine proposed Monday, according to legislators from western Virginia.

“It’s basically, ‘there he goes again,’ ” said Sen. Steve Newman, R-Lynchburg, recalling that Kaine campaigned “as a Democrat who did not want to raise taxes.”

Newman said he’s ready to offer a no-new-tax solution, which most lawmakers have not yet backed.

Del. Shannon Valentine, the Lynchburg region’s only Democrat in the legislature, said, “I am grateful the governor offered a transportation plan with revenue options, giving all legislators a place to begin working and negotiating.”

That work officially will begin June 23 when the General Assembly convenes in a special session on transportation. But Republicans were ready on Monday to criticize Kaine’s proposal, starting with taxes.

“If you are going to spend that kind of money, there’s not much there for rural areas,” said Del. Morgan Griffith of Salem, the House majority leader.

Two elements of Kaine’s three-part plan are focused almost completely on urban areas.

One proposal would establish regional systems in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads to build congestion relief by adding a penny to the sales tax in those regions.

The second proposal would fund rail and other non-automobile transportation by increasing the grantor’s tax on home sales.

The third element of the governor’s plan would add $445 million to road maintenance, partly from a 1-cent increase in the sales tax on cars. It also would add $10 to the annual registration fee, which now starts at $40 for most cars.

Rural areas could benefit from the maintenance plan.

Virginia has been covering its rising cost of road upkeep by dipping into its highway-construction money.

If legislators were to approve Kaine’s proposal for new maintenance funds, more of the construction dollars could be used for actually building roads —- some of them in rural areas.

Increased maintenance funding is the key element of the plan, according to Del. Ward Armstrong of Henry County, the House minority leader. If the urban elements of Kaine’s plan were to be approved, and the maintenance proposal failed to pass the assembly, the urban areas would have to spend half their new revenues on road upkeep, Armstrong said.

Kaine’s press spokesman, Gordon Hickey, said part of the governor’s tax package was designed to stimulate the statewide economy, which means “there’s something for everybody.”

“This is the only proposal on the table,” Hickey said. “Nobody else has got anything on the table.”

Newman said he had a different idea, one that requires government to live within its existing revenues.

“I understand that we need to have additional funding for transportation,” Newman said. “However, I think that funding for transportation should be a budget priority for the legislature and not just another opportunity to raise taxes.”

Newman said the legislature should dedicate a half-cent of the existing sales tax to transportation in each year that doesn’t have a funding shortfall — a condition that is projected to occur in the coming year.

That tactic would take money from other state programs that Newman didn’t specify, but he said the state can afford it.

“If we were to put in $100 million a year for transportation it would never be removed, and then we will have budgeted for transportation,” said Newman, who is a member of the Senate Transportation Committee.

“We need to have discipline in budgeting, and that includes transportation,” he said.

Griffith and Del. Kirk Cox, R-Colonial Heights, issued a news release giving House Republicans’ official position on Kaine’s proposal. They narrowed their focus to approving regional plans for Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads.

The governor should “drop his demands for massive statewide taxes,” they said.

A voice not heard Monday, and not for several weeks in the transportation debate, was that of Del. William Howell of Stafford, speaker of the House.

Howell usually sends any proposal that includes a tax increase to the House Finance Committee, which is dominated by anti-tax Republicans. Tax bills die there without a recorded vote.