Budget Mess
RHETORIC: Delegate Kirk Cox wrote an op-ed in the Progress-Index defending Jim Gilmore's budget record while distoring Mark Warner's record.
REALITY: Governor Warner inherited a $6 billion budget shortfall thanks to Jim Gilmore's budget gimmicks, and turned it into a surplus by cutting spending and reforming the tax code.
RHETORIC: Kirk Cox wrote: “Virginia is a balanced budget state. The General Assembly must pass and the governor must sign a balanced budget. Warner’s predecessor, Gov. Jim Gilmore, submitted a final budget that was balanced as required by Virginia’s Constitution.”
REALITY: A Washington Post editorial clarified that Gilmore used gimmicks to balance Virginia’s budget as required by law, saying:
“Today, Mr. Gilmore innocently states that on leaving office in 2002 he bequeathed a balanced budget and $1 billion in reserves. But the balanced budget was a fiction that papered over a yawning deficit with shenanigans such as requiring retailers to prepay their sales tax and employers to prepay their withholding tax. And the reserves, for which Mr. Gilmore bears no responsibility -- they were statutorily required -- did nothing to forestall the state's fiscal crisis. It fell to Mr. Warner, who succeeded Mr. Gilmore as governor.” [Washington Post, Editorial, 6/15/08]
REALITY: The Staunton Daily News Leader called Gilmore's final budget a "fiscal fiasco" and "vintage Gilmore at its finest - or its worst, depending on your point of view."
“As usual, Gilmore robs Peter to pay Paul. His budget proposes to save the state from the fiscal morass he is leaving it in by: Ripping off half of the $940 million emergency fund; Borrowing almost $1 billion to start a massive building program on college campuses; Pilfering over $600 million from the transportation trust fund to pay for general programs (leaving IOUs in place of the vanished money); Cutting cash contributions to the Virginia Retirement System; Slashing mental health and social services programs (as usual).” [Daily News Leader, Editorial, 12/21/01]
REALITY: Newspapers across Virginia rejected the gimmicks Gilmore used to ‘balance’ the budget.The Daily Press of Newport News said that Governor Warner "inherited a royal fiscal mess." The Virginian-Pilot of Norfolk wrote at the end of 2001: “How could Virginia be facing such huge shortages of money when state coffers had been bulging from several years of surpluses? This ranks among the worst cases of fiscal management in the state’s history." [Daily Press, Editorial, 3/22/02; Virginian-Pilot, Editorial, 12/19/01]
RHETORIC: Kirk Cox wrote: “Mark Warner decided he needed to raise taxes because he did not have enough taxpayers’ money to spend. A recent Warner TV commercial claims he cut spending, but state budgets rose 24.7 percent during his term. State spending in the Gilmore years rose at a much slower pace.”
REALITY: The Washington Post reported that “Spending in Virginia rose more than 40 percent during Gilmore's term, faster than in all but three states.” [Washington Post, 3/3/02]
REALITY: The Washington Post added that “the earliest suggestion that the state was spending more money than it really had” dated back to “financial reports presented by Gilmore's finance secretary” in August 2000. “The 10.5 percent growth in tax collections announced that day was propped up by about $84 million in one-time corporate tax payments. Tax revenue also seemed higher because of delays in the distribution of tax refunds.” [Washington Post, 3/3/02]
REALITY: In his first two years as governor, Mark Warner “shut down 50 boards, agencies and commissions, cut 5,000 state jobs and slashed department budgets an average of 20 percent since becoming governor nearly two years ago, all to close a $6 billion budget hole,” he announced before building support for bi-partisan budget and tax reform. [Richmond Times-Dispatch, 11/26/03]
RHETORIC: Kirk Cox wrote: “Mark Warner was able to manage spending increases by raising taxes, while Gov. Gilmore worked to reduce your car tax by 70 percent. Mark Warner actually promised to get rid of the car tax completely while governor. Just another fact he tries to keep from voters.”
REALITY: When Jim Gilmore ran for governor in 1997, he wrote to local elected officials promising that car tax relief “would be paid for from new revenues received by the Commonwealth, not from cuts from existing programs.”A Gilmore press release stated, “in the event that revenues do not grow sufficiently to fund the tax cut, the legislation would freeze the state’s percentage at the level then in effect.” [Gilmore Campaign Letter, 5/14/97; Gilmore Press Release, 1/23/98]
REALITY: Governor Warner’s initial tax-reform proposal did call for phasing out the car-tax, but the legislature presented a compromise version of the bill capping the car-tax phase out at 70%. While Governor Warner supported the phase out, in 2001 he said, “But clearly the latest budget numbers will make it difficult to complete next year. I have said from the beginning that I need to look at the books to determine the true state of Virginia's fiscal condition.” [Richmond Times-Dispatch, 11/4/01]