Five Republican leaders are going on record urging Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to avoid balancing the state budget with a tax increase.
In a Dec. 10 letter, the writers remind the departing governor, a Democrat, that incoming Gov.-elect Bob McDonnell, a Republican, has repeatedly said he will not support a tax increase.
Thanks to a slumping economy, Kaine has to find $3.5 billion in cuts in the state budget. He is scheduled to propose his fiscal plan next Friday at a joint meeting of the legislature's money committees. Kaine has said that in balancing the budget, "everything's on the table."
The letter from Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling, Speaker of the House of Delegates William J. Howell, R-Stafford; Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee Lacey E. Putney, I-Bedford; Senate Minority Leader Thomas K. Norment Jr., R-James City and Senate Finance Committee member William C. Wampler, Jr., R-Bristol states that McDonnell's aversion to a tax hike was "strongly affirmed by the voters throughout Virginia in November."
They said it seems "unfathomable" that government would try to extract from residents additional tax revenue.
"As witnessed in the past, injecting an unworkable and economically harmful tax increase into the state spending blueprint would serve only to delay the inevitable," they write. "It would put at risk the many positive steps we have advanced together over your term in office."
Kaine fired back in a letter today noting that the state has already made $7 billion in cuts and is facing a multi-billion-dollar budget gap in the next biennium.
"While I appreciate your thoughts regarding the burdens faced by our citizens and businesses in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, your letter conveys a failure to grasp the stark realities of the coming budget," Kaine wrote. "We are far beyond the stage of eliminating inefficiencies or making merely difficult cuts."
He says despite tough times, his administration has preserved core services; maintained Virginia's Triple-A bond rating; and balanced the budget in a "fiscally responsible manner."
"My final proposed budget will carry on this tradition of sound budgetary management and fiscal stability."
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