Tim Kaine: Honeymoon is over

[Virginian87]

I still don't see why we need yet another tax increase when we already have a $1Bill surplus.  *grumbles*

"Legislative Honeymoon Doesn't Last Long for Kaine"

So much for Gov. Timothy M. Kaine's legislative honeymoon.

The first six months of his four-year term, the Democrat governor was locked in a partisan turf fight with conservative Republicans who rule the House of Delegates.

Some of the results are unprecedented in Virginia:

- Profound disagreement over a new stream of money for road, rail and transit projects statewide created a budget impasse that came within two days of leaving government unfunded. It's the third time in five years the state missed its late-winter budget deadline, but never had the state been this tardy enacting a budget.

- For the first time, a gubernatorial appointee to a cabinet-level position failed to win legislative confirmation. Daniel G. LeBlanc's nomination as secretary of the commonwealth was defeated in the House because LeBlanc had headed the state AFL-CIO in right-to-work Virginia.

- The House unsuccessfully tried to strip Kaine of much of the governor's authority to appoint members of state boards and commissions, including the Commonwealth Transportation Board.

The $1 billion annual transportation funding imperative Kaine identified as his first-year priority has gone nowhere. Prospects that the House will end six months of unyielding opposition to new taxes as a special legislative session lingers into autumn are unlikely.

(Cont...)

Look, like I told everybody last year, Kaine is a liberal, as well as an accomplished liar.

Expect more nonsense from him.

Oh, BTW, notice how both Kaine and Corzine are pushing for tax increases.

Its really irritating the voters in New Jersey.

Kaine is a fine governor.  It's the idiotic anti-tax Republicans in the House of Delegates who are fouling things up.  They've killed nearly all of the governor's major plans to increase transportation funding towards new roads and new state-sponsored rail programs, as well as educational funding to our state universities.  They care more about giving the Democratic governor a black eye than in the needs of Virginians.  If this keeps up, expect the Democrats to run with it and receive major gains in the House of Delegates in 2007.

[Virginian87]

Well, I prefer candidates who tell the truth to candidates who lie.

Also, I prefer that people get to keep their money rather than the government take it from them for non-essential purposes.

Non-essential purposes?  You call increased spending on state-sponsored transportation systems and more money for Virginia public schools and colleges "non-essential purposes"?  That kind of talk only works in libertarian fantasy-land. 

Virginia's schools can always use more money, especially in Southside and in the panhandle.  Then there are the state colleges.  In addition to UVA, William and Mary, and Virginia Tech, the state also funds George Mason, Virginia Commonwealth, and James Madison universities, among others.  This amount of shared college spending has especially been a problem with UVA, which is trying to compete with other elite state colleges like California-Berkeley and Michigan as well as the Ivy League.  Because some people like you in Virginia view this as a "non-essential purpose", there has been a lot of talk of privatizing UVA.  Privatizing this school would eliminate the special in-state tutition (a fraction of out-of-state tuition) that Virginia students receive.  UVA must be kept public, and the only way to do that is through increased educational funding.

I also wholly support the Governor's initiative to fund much-needed road improvements (widening of I-66 and I-81, for example, as well as improvements to U.S. 29 and U.S. 460).  Finally, to make safe, efficient statewide transportation for Virginians, the Governor has proposed the Transdominion Express, state-sponsored passenger rail service that would link Washington, D.C. with Charlottesville, Roanoke, Lynchburg, Bristol, and Richmond.  The train would provide a more environmentally friendly way to travel in the state, as well as allow a safer route of travel from Northern Virginia to the Shenandoah Valley by avoiding the dangerous truck-congested route of I-81.

As far as I can see, Kaine's proposals only stand to help Virginians, and in a big way.  As Frodo pointed out, Kaine is not an unpopular governor, and Virginians are not opposed to him.  It is more the Republicans who want to punish him for defeating their beloved Jerry Kilgore and refusing to follow their strict anti-tax dogma.  It is the Republicans in the House of Delegates, not Kaine, who stand to lose the most in this battle.  Kaine stands for progress, while these state delegates just want to hamper it.  If this fight continues into next year, there might be a good deal of Republican state delegates out of work come November.

[Virginian87]

Kaine was elected with the full knowledge that the GOP legislature would limit his ability to screw things up. Virginian voters have been-- for basically the entire history of the state-- pragmatic and somewhat preferenced towards technocratic leaders. Virginia went for Bell in 1860 rather than Breckenridge. Nixon in 1960. And so on.

Kaine was seen as somewhat more competent than Kilgore, so he was elected. Meanwhile, he is the only relevant Democrat in the entire state (in state politics- obviously there are some Dem Reps). He has no mandate for a left-wing agenda and the fact he lied about his intentions made it easy as pie for the legislature to swat him down.

I don't see how increased funding for the items I mentioned in my earlier post is a "left-wing agenda".  Kaine is no DailyKos-style liberal either; on the contrary, he is something of a moderate Democrat.  Like Warner, he is also a pragmatist; the items he earmarked for the state budget were designed to benefit most Virginians. 

If you ask me, it's not Kaine but the Republican idiots in the House of Delegates who are screwing things up.  Those guys are bent on damaging Kaine's reputation, rather than actually trying to improve the lives of Virginians.