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Annotations & Elucidations 

A Nice Deep Breath

Computer problems hamper today’s blog offerings, but I’ve managed to eek out a News Stand. Wasn’t much going on statewide — it’s a good time to take a deep politics breath and relax after the last several months. One item of note is that Attorney General-elect Ken Cuccinelli announced his transition plans. Otherwise, we found an article from Politico.com about the robo call Chuck Colson made for us (hear it here) — lil’ ol’ us in a major national blog like that! We have a few pre-election leftovers and lots of great commentary about the election results from around the country, as well as ongoing health care “reform” coverage. Take it all in . . . and breathe easy . . . for a while, anyway.

News:

*Colson urges vote in VA (Politico.com)

Cuccinelli transition team includes onetime McDonnell legal adversary (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Court order issued to stop review of Beach absentee ballots (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot)

GOP House gains intensify competition in N.Virginia (Washington Post)

Democrats doubt depths of Amiral’s private pockets (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot)

Kaine to teach law, leadership after term (Washington Times)

Long-distance call from Alaska? (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Liberty University students head to the polls (Lynchburg News & Advance)

National News:

Southern Dems cast wary eye over election results (AP/GOPUSA.com)

Democrats’ concerns over abortion may imperil health bill (Washington Post)

‘Kill the bill’ protesters target health care (AP/GOPUSA.com)

House health care vote set for Saturday (AP/GOPUSA.com)

Senate blocks census citizenship question (AP/GOPUSA.com)

Democrats fear triple blow on Election Day (Christian Science Monitor)

Commentary:

Is the Republican Party Going RINO Hunting? (Bobby Eberle/GOPUSA.com)

Written off by the Media, Republicans Win Big! (Bobby Eberle/GOPUSA.com)

Wow! Look At What the Establishment ‘Republican’ Just Did (Bobby Eberle/GOPUSA.com)

Republican Leaders Seeing the Light and Going Conservative? (Bobby Eberle/GOPUSA.com)

White House Postelection Arrogance (David Limbaugh/GOPUSA.com)

The Death Of Deliberative Democracy (Michelle Malkin/GOPUSA.com)

Blueprint For GOP Victories (Linda Cahvez/GOPUSA.com)

NY23: What It Meant And What It Didn’t Mean (John Ellis/GOPUSA.com)

Better Or Worse? (Thomas Sowell/GOPUSA.com)

A Stomach Ache For Our Sponsor (Brent Bozell/GOPUSA.com)

Topping the news today is Delegate Clark Hogan’s (R-60, South Boston) decision not to seek re-election. He follows another young House Republican member, Delegate Bill Fralin (R-17, Roanoke), in surprising observers with the such an announcement. Not only that, but Senator Ken Stolle (R-8, Virginia Beach) may leave the Senate — if he runs for and gets elected Virginia Beach Sheriff. Interesting, as ever.

Hogan not running for re-election, plans to focus on business (Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Stolle considers run for Virginia Beach sheriff (Norfolk Virginian-Pilot)

Va. Optimistic On Revenue (Harrisonburg Daily News-Record)

Area now a battleground for governor (The Daily Press)

Democrats Target McDonnell As Va. Smoking Ban Is Signed (Washington Post) 

Obama’s Order on Stem Cells Leaves Key Questions to NIH (Washington Post)

It’s a well established fact of history that when Mark Warner ran for governor in 2001, he looked into the camera during his debate with Mark Early and disputed Early’s claim that Warner was going to raise our taxes. Warner flatly denied it. 

When he took office he cleverly tried to raise taxes through the back door via regional sales taxes referenda in Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia which would have ostensibly funded transportation projects in those regions. Each lost decisively.

Emboldened by his loss, Mr. Warner a year later, blatantly decided on a full frontal attack. He and his Sundance Kid, RINO then-Senator John Chichester, rammed through a statewide tax increase, Virginia’s largest ever, for everything but transportation. Their cry was that the Commonwealth was short on cash for core services, such as public safety and education. If nothing else, it proved another lie that the mainstream media nary expounds on: Warner was dead-set determined to raise taxes on someone, somehow, for any reason, campaign promise charade and all. Perhaps he needed to burnish his liberal credentials. Believe me, they already were firmly established. Just like Butch and Sundance: see a bank, gotta rob it. Money, especially when it’s someone else’s, is addictive, you know. The change in direction from transportation emergency to public safety and education crisis only deepened the plot: He was looking for anything he could sell that the public would buy. Transportation wouldn’t get them to part with their hard-earned money, but the scare tactic of police lay-offs and kids getting no education might work. It did. By the way, we didn’t hear much from Mr. Warner about a transportation crisis then, did we?

It truly is another matter if a politician says one thing while campaigning and the facts on the ground later make for a radically different situation. This wasn’t the case at all. Hence more deception and fraud. Mr. Warner claimed he inherited a deficit. Not true. Virginia law prohibits it. His predecessor, former Governor Jim Gilmore, his opponent now in the U.S. Senate campaign, made — by law — the cuts necessary when Sundance Chichester couldn’t come to an agreement on budget amendments with House Republicans.

Adding insult (to our intelligence) to injury (to our bank accounts) Mr. Warner misled Virginians again when he said he cut spending and there was nothing left to cut. Is that why spending increased dramatically during his term, from $23.48 billion to $32 billion? (That is about a 30 percent increase.) This truly is where white becomes black and black becomes white.

But his greatest whopper was that the tax increase — at $1.4 billion, Virginia’s largest ever — was needed for a short fall for the next budget year. Time and time again he and his finance secretary presented figures to the General Assembly showing a slow down in tax receipts. Not only was there enough money coming in, but Warner’s conception of a short fall wasn’t a budget deficit, but a short fall in his own over-inflated revenue projections. As it was, a few weeks after he signed that largest-tax-increase-in-Virginia-history, he revealed we had a $1 billion surplus.

So, let’s review: Lie about not seeking a tax increase by trying to get the state’s two most populous regions to approve a sales tax hike; lie that it is needed for transportation; prove that lie by lying the next year by telling us we needed an even larger tax increase for public safety and education. (Did transportation cure itself?) Lie about inheriting a budget deficit when Virginia law proves you’re wrong. Then lie about cutting spending when, in fact, the figures show you increased spending. Lie that the next budget is in deficit when it is only your own inflated revenue projections that are the problem even though they came in $1 billion above what was needed to cover the budget. Now say you “straightened out the mess in Richmond.” More than a con artist but without the lethal force used for a bank robbery. Somewhere between Old West gunnies and Marc Rich. There it is. Mark Warner, in his own unique class.

With Warner’s concerted effort of deception (and the re-writing of history) it is no wonder Governor Tim Kaine thinks he also can get away with it raising taxes despite his 2005 campaign no tax pledge:

“We just had a tax increase. I’m not going to be in for another one.” 

Which reminds me of a question raised here before, but has gone unanswered: Does Mark Warner support Tim Kaine’s billion dollar tax-increase plan?

Just four years ago, Virginians were asked to pay for a massive tax increase, the brainchild of former Governor and current Democrat U.S. Senate candidate Mark Warner and former Virginia Senator and lifelong RINO John Chichester. (Visit tomorrow for the untold background on this, the largest tax increase in Virginia history.) As a result, billions more dollars from working families in Virginia have poured into the coffers in Richmond. In the three state budgets since, state government has spent nearly $100 billion of your money. The result? They’re back for more.

Regardless of Governor Tim Kaine’s (contact him here) rhetoric about working families in Virginia expecting a “free lunch” for not wanting to send more of their hard earned money to Richmond, the fact remains that there is plenty of revenue in Richmond to pay for core government services. 

But for the politicians, there just isn’t enough money to pay for those services and everything else they want. There never will be enough for their voracious spending appetites, all while Virginia taxpayers get nothing close to a free lunch — and it is incredibly arrogant for the governor to suggest that we are.

This Monday, June 23, the General Assembly will meet at the capitol for what we’ve dubbed the “Special Tax Session” because, despite the rhetoric about a “transportation crisis,” there are no guarantees that revenue from any new taxes will go solely to transportation. Any new tax money will go into the general fund and be spent any way Virginia’s political elite wants it to be spent. It’s telling that one of the biggest supporters of the tax increase is the Virginia Education Association. Exactly what interest should the teachers union have in a tax increase for “transportation”? Their excitement clearly indicates they’ve been given a free run through the pork trough if the tax increase passes.

The lack of a guarantee that transportation will become a priority is just one of the many reasons that the General Assembly should reject the call for tax hikes. See our interview with Delegate Mark Cole (R-88, Fredericksburg) and his response about the raid on the Transportation Trust Fund. The fact that transportation spending makes up just 13 percent of the budget, while education makes up 40 percent and social services 30 percent, indicates that transportation never really has been the priority it should. To complain about a “crisis” now is disingenuous. If there is a crisis, it’s a crisis in leadership, not of citizenship. What leader, beside Jimmy Carter, criticizes his constituents?

But most importantly, to ask Virginia’s working families to pay even more in taxes when they are facing extraordinary and ever-rising gas and food prices, a collapsed housing market, job insecurity and a sluggish economy, is the unrestrained arrogance of elitism, of someone out of touch with, perhaps, “bitter” people. Your elected officials — especially your delegate and senator — must not feel this lack of restraint the governor apparently feels. Send a clear message to your representatives that you oppose higher taxes and fees.

Remember: The politicians will raise your taxes if they think you don’t care, because they can sell it to you as something necessary, as in transportation, then spend it any way they choose. So you must let them know you are paying attention. Click here and send an e-mail to your delegate and senator and urge them to oppose higher taxes. Then forward this link to your friends and family so they can make their voices heard as well.