Kilgore's Tax Referendum Idea

One of the big ideas that Jerry Kilgore(R) is touting in his kickoff tour is his plan to require any tax increase that the state wants to make in either gas taxes, sales taxes, or income taxes, be put before the voters in a referendum.

A recent Washington Post Article on the subject gives us a feel for how the idea is being received amongst Republican leaders and the party activists.

In what should hardly be surprising, Republican leaders are very mum about the idea, and are unwilling to criticize it for fear of hurting Kilgore's chances in the general election against Lt. Gov Tim Kaine(D). However, when even Jim Gilmore, the man responsible for coming close to utterly destroying Virginia's finances with his insistence on cutting the car tax, will only say "I certainly support the candidate" when braced with this tax referendum idea, you know that they all think the idea ludicrous.

And it is highly unlikely to pass either. Del. Vince Callahan(R), Chairman of the Appropriations Committee had nothing nice to say about the plan either. He simply passed on the question. When you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all, is the rule of the day when it comes to GOP leaders to Kilgore.

However, the idea is definitely popular with the rank and file. And this shouldn't surprise us either. This is the sort of red meat on taxes that they love. And why shouldn't they? It'll be far easier to defeat a tax increase if it is made into a referendum that voters can defeat at the ballot box (and if you think that they will ever approve raising their own taxes, you should take a peak at that old GOP adage they used to tar liberals with, "Democracy ends when people learn that they can vote themselves money from the treasury." If anybody has the exact quote, I'd be most grateful.

And in fact, the rank and file already know this! And they know that the real point of Kilgore's plan is to guarantee that taxes are never ever increased. One activist had this to say, "I'd rather have the taxes stopped in the first place [by the legislature]. But since we've beaten every single referendum so far, it's essentially the same thing. So I'm happy."

Kilgore's plan would make tax increases almost impossible. But tax cuts would still be fairly easy. And thus, it would mark the beginning of the end of Virginia's finances and state services. Localities would have to increase taxes to make up for the loss in state money that will occur. But Kilgore has a plan for that too. It's called capping assessments at 5% a year.

Kilgore intends to strangle the state of Virginia's finances at its source, and wants to make the taxpayer vote for these things themselves, that way the GOP legislators can say they have no choice but to slash the services of the state.

Grover Norquist would be so proud.