First test of the sales tax increase: Thumbs down [VA State Senate]

Among the leaders of the opposition to the proposed 11 percent sales tax increase on the ballot this November is a young Republican lawyer from Centreville named Ken Cuccinelli.

Today, Mr. Cuccinelli is the Republican nominee for the 37th District state Senate seat, recently vacated by retiring Republican Sen. Warren Barry.

The firehouse primary in which he was nominated, held June 27, was the first real test of voter sentiment on the sales tax referendum. The result was not promising for the tax increase.

Cuccinelli fiercely opposed both the proposed tax increase and the idea of holding the referendum in the first place. His across-the-board opposition to tax increases resonated deeply with voters and inspired hard-working volunteers to flock to his campaign from across Northern Virginia.

Indeed, Cuccinelli turned out more supporters last Thursday night than both Democrats combined at their firehouse primary the following Friday night, June 28. Cuccinelli's Democratic opponent, Cathy Belter, supports the 11 percent sales tax increase and is urging taxpayers to vote for it.

The general election in this race will be held Aug. 6. As Cuccinelli told a roomful of volunteers shortly before the primary, he and Belter are on opposite sides of every issue of principle, in a classic conservative-vs.-liberal matchup.

Besides their opposing views on the sales tax increase, they also differ on Cuccinelli's proposal to limit annual property tax increases to no more than 5 percent a year. Counties across Northern Virginia would then have to learn to live within the same budget as the region's families, where incomes do not regularly grow more than 5 percent per year either.

Moreover, Cuccinelli has already taken the Americans for Tax Reform pledge not to raise taxes. So far, Belter has refused to do so.

Cuccinelli favors improving and building more roads and highways in the region to reduce traffic congestion, but not with higher taxes. Instead, he wants to slow the runaway growth in total state spending in recent years, and devote more of the tax dollars we are already paying to transportation.

Data recently obtained from the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission in Richmond, the state's official fiscal scorekeepers, show how reasonable this policy is. Based on the latest available estimates, total state spending in the current fiscal year from all sources will be 8.75 percent higher than last year.

Yet the proposed sales tax increase for Northern Virginia would raise revenues equal to about 0.5 percent of total state spending each year. That means if the state spending increase for this year had been slightly scaled back to a whopping 8.25 percent, the savings would have been enough to replace all of the revenues to be raised by the sales tax increase.

That same slight restraint in state spending every year would allow all of the transportation projects to be financed by the referendum to be built without the sales tax increase.

In a recent debate, tax increase advocate Del. Jeannemarie Devolites, R-Vienna, challenged taxpayer advocate Jim Parmelee to come up with an alternative plan if he didn't like the sales tax increase.

Well, this is the plan: modest restraint in the growth of runaway state spending, with the savings to be used to finance essential transportation projects.

Cuccinelli represents the wave of the future for the Republican Party in Virginia. The Republican Party base is not going to provide money, volunteers and votes for those who support wild annual spending and tax increases well in excess of the increase in personal income.

Such policies translate into taxes taking a bigger and bigger share of family incomes every year. That money grab is oppressive, counterproductive and politically unsustainable.

Many elected Republicans in the region have been bludgeoned into supporting the tax increase by the Big Developer lobby threatening to squeeze out their campaign funds unless they toe the line.

They should take their cue from the most politically successful Republican governors in the state's history: George Allen, now a U.S. senator, and Jim Gilmore.

When Allen came along in 1993, Republicans had not held the governorship for 12 years. The Big Developer lobby insisted that he support tax increases, not tax cuts, or they would cut off contributions to him.

Allen told them to get lost, raised his money elsewhere, ran on a strong tax cut platform and won the largest landslide for a non-incumbent Republican in the state's history.

Similarly, the Big Developer lobby told Gilmore he had to support a tax increase or they would cut off his business contributions. Gilmore decided instead to embrace the car tax cut, infuriating the tax-hike lobby. They have been out to destroy him ever since.

But that car tax cut transformed Gilmore from sure loser into another landslide winner for the GOP. Moreover, under the leadership of Allen and Gilmore, the Republicans took over the Virginia Legislature for the first time in history.

Cuccinelli is in the same winning Republican tradition as Allen and Gilmore. That is the future for other elected Republicans in Northern Virginia as well.

I've finally seen about 50 Cuccinelli ads on FOX News the past two days. He saved all his media buy for the end. It's a good ad in that it points out the stark differences between him and the liberal.

Today's email:

**Before I get to this weekend's activities.... we need volunteers tomorrow night at the Kilgore Rally !!! Please come ... children are welcome!!

6:30pm -- Casual Attire

City of Fairfax Volunteer Fire Dept. , 4081 University Drive, Fairfax

Saturday, August 3

Phone Banks

10:30 am - 9:00 pm -- 2740 Chain Bridge Road, Law Offices of Tate and Bywater, Vienna

(This will be done in shifts .... if you RSVP to phone banks I will coordinate with you time slots with each individual)

Literature Drops

10am: Meet at St. Timothy's Catholic Church

We have a new flyer that we will be dropping to certain areas ... and we need lots of people to do it!! Please round up your neighbors and family to come out and get some exercise ... and sweat a couple of pounds off!!! :)

Sunday, August 3

Flyering Churches -- THIS IS A HUGE EVENT !!! We need tons of people!!

7:30 am -- This is the earliest time slot that we need to fill.

If you are able to give time on Sunday morning please let me know ... we will place you on a team to hit certain churches. I will again work with you individually once you have signed up.

Literature Drops

1:00 pm -- We will meet at St. Timothy's again ... this is hopefully to finish up the areas that we were unable to cover on Saturday.

PLEASE RSVP BY CALLING ME at 703-766-0635 OR REPLY TO THIS EMAIL!!

Thank you all .... we are in the final stretch. Let's give it all we got ... we have to beat the Democrats and their $$$ !!!!!

====

Unfortunately, I'm going to NYC this weekend and will be unable to partipate in lit drops, but I am going to the fundraiser with Kilgore tomorrow. I'm going to try and catch Kilgore's ear concerning this homosexual agenda fight in Fairfax schools.

Tuesday's special election is a showdown on taxes
By PETER FERRARA

ON Tuesday, a special election will be held in the 37th Senate District, which is in the Springfield/Centreville area, to fill the seat of retiring Sen. Warren Barry. That bellwether vote will have a huge impact on what happens to taxes throughout Northern Virginia.

On the issue of taxes, the lines could not be more clearly drawn in that race. The Republican nominee, Ken Cuccinelli, has proposed a statewide cap on runaway property tax increases.

Under the plan, counties could not increase property taxes by more than 5 percent each year. That makes sense, because taxpayer incomes generally do not grow by more than 5 percent a year.

Yet throughout Northern Virginia, property taxes have been soaring at more than twice that rate. Just this past year, property taxes increased in Fairfax County a whopping 14 percent on average, after a runaway 13 percent increase last year.

Indeed, since Kate Hanley was re-elected as the chair of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in 1999, saying she saw ``no need" to raise taxes, the annual property tax bill for the average family in the county is up almost $1,000.

In Loudoun County, property taxes soared 63 percent between 1999 and 2002. In Arlington, property taxes increased by 34 percent over the past three years.

Such tax increases are especially burdensome to seniors on fixed incomes and young people with families struggling to make ends meet. Because of these wild increases, property taxes are taking a bigger and bigger share of taxpayer incomes each year, leaving them with less and less to support their families.

Cuccinelli's plan would stop that, through state legislation prohibiting property taxes in any county from increasing faster than 5 percent per year. That would reasonably allow property taxes to grow along with average incomes each year, but no faster.

However, the Democrat nominee, Cathy Belter, opposes that plan. She insists that counties need more revenue so they can increase their spending faster.

Indeed, at a meeting of the Northern Virginia Roundtable which I attended on July 25, Belter said that if elected, she wants to consider income tax increases. She told the gathering that she is from New York, where people are used to paying a lot higher taxes than in Virginia.

Cuccinelli, by contrast, thinks that raising income taxes would be nuts. Virginians already pay more than enough in taxes, and an income tax hike would be quite harmful to the economy, which is struggling to get off the floor.

Cuccinelli also opposes the proposed 11 percent increase in the sales tax that is on the ballot this November. Belter naturally favors that tax increase as well.

Cuccinelli has taken the Americans for Tax Reform pledge not to raise taxes. That pledge has been taken by thousands of federal, state and local pro-taxpayer candidates across the country in recent years, including President Bush.

Belter, of course, has refused to take that pledge. She gets a point for honesty for that, because she favors increasing sales taxes, income taxes and property taxes.

This race will be closely watched all across Northern Virginia as a bellwether test of voter sentiment on taxes.

A Belter win will be taken as showing voter support for even higher increases in taxes and government spending. It will open the door to more rapid property tax increases, give a huge boost to the effort to increase sales taxes, and lead the General Assembly to consider further tax increases next year.

But if Cuccinelli wins, the Northern Virginia tax increase express will be derailed. His win will be taken as a warning from voters that they want to keep Virginia's tradition of fiscal conservatism, with restrained tax and spending burdens.

Cuccinelli and Belter disagree on just about every other issue as well, in a classic liberal/conservative matchup.

Cuccinelli favors maintaining the state's right to work tradition. Belter's campaign is based on the support of unions that would repeal right to work in the state and deliver workers to union control, regardless of their preferences.

Cuccinelli favors devoting more resources to transportation needs by restraining state spending on lesser priorities, not by raising taxes. Belter favors increasing government spending on just about everything else as well as roads, and raising taxes to do it.

Belter favors adding homosexuality to the anti-discrimination policy of Fairfax County Public Schools. Cuccinelli opposes special preferences for homosexuals, and says they have the same rights as everyone else under current law.

Cuccinelli is pro-life; Belter is pro-abortion.

So the stakes are clearly drawn. If you favor across-the-board liberalism, higher taxes and more rapidly increasing government spending, you should be supporting Belter.

If you favor a mainstream conservative candidate who wants to hold the line on taxes and spending and maintain Virginia's traditional fiscal conservatism, you should be supporting Cuccinelli.

Peter Ferrara is president of the Virginia Club for Growth and director of the International Center for Law and Economics in Washington, D.C.

http://cold.jrnl.com/cfdocs/new/ffx/story.cfm?paper=ffx&section=fp&snumber=23

I wanted to relay a story that happened today that I was a witness to, I am not relaying this second-hand. We were dropping http://www.cuccinelli.com flyers as mentioned above at St. Timothy's in Chantilly. There was also a group at St. Andrew the Apostle in Centreville, both groups had similar experiences.

Please note: we had the Pastors' & the Diocese of Arlington's permisssion to do this.

At the first mass of the day (7:30am) after we had covered all the windshields we found an individual who took it upon himself to try & remove all of our hard work. When confronted, he started spouting about a violation of the 501c3 regulations and how the parish would lose tax-exempt status. I knew better than this and told him so which quieted him as he kept about undoing our work. He then ranted about social justice, death penalty(Ken is opposed), etc. Then came the clincher, he said that he IS a Catholic, but not in this (Arlington) diocese.

We quickly regrouped and recovered all the cars that he "hit" before the Mass was finished. Neither he nor any of his cohorts returned for any of the other Masses.

So, never forget, your free speech is fine so long as it doesn't interfere with the liberal agenda. Had this fallen Catholic been posting his own flyers, fine. But, of course, he & the democrats find it easier to destroy than to debate the issues. If any of you flyer churches in the future have a camera ready, you never know when it will come in handy.

As Del Scott Lingamfelter says: "You take care of your guns & I'll take care of mine."

From Ken's website:

2nd Amendment & Crime

Ken believes that the right to keep and bear arms is one of the most important rights that we have, and he will work to maintain that right for all of Virginia's law abiding citizens, while working to have those that commit crimes with guns severely punished. Part of Ken's commitment to protecting the 2nd Amendment includes his support of concealed carry legislation that allows law abiding citizens to defend themselves and those around them. Ken believes that such concealed carry rights should be reciprocated among States in the same way that different States recognize one another's drivers' licenses.

Hand in hand with Ken’s commitment to maintaining 2nd Amendment rights is his firm commitment to severely penalize those that use guns in crimes. Virginia’s project Exile has cracked down on illegal gun use, contributing to a significant drop in Virginia’s violent crime rate. Combined with the abolition of parole, such common-sense law enforcement will continue to make Virginia a safer place to live. Ken will fight any effort to weaken project Exile or the abolition of parole.

After the fact but for the record.

Hopefuls get word out on election
Mary Shaffrey
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Published 8/5/2002

The two candidates vying to replace Virginia state Sen. Warren Barry, who resigned in July to take a job in Gov. Mark R. Warner's administration, found out yesterday that few voters in District 37 seem to know a special election is being held tomorrow.

Democrat Cathy Belter and Republican Ken Cuccinelli, both Catholics, spent much of the day meeting with church congregations in the district, which stretches from Burke to Bull Run.

Mr. Cuccinelli emphasized his pro-life stance for church members.

"I am the pro-life candidate in this election and with two more votes in the state Senate, we can override Governor Warner's veto of partial-birth abortion and make sure that procedure never takes place in Virginia again," Mr. Cuccinelli told parishioners at St. Mark's Coptic Orthodox Church in Fairfax, which was similar to a message he delivered earlier at the Bethlehem Baptist Church in Fairfax.

At St. Mark's, Mr. Cuccinelli was introduced by parishioner Michael Meunier, a Cuccinelli volunteer and president of the U.S. Copts Association, which represents 750,000 Coptic Christians throughout the country.

"He is supporting good issues and he is family- and religion-friendly," said Aida Habashy of Vienna, Va.

Mrs. Belter spent the morning at the First Baptist Church of Vienna and later the Korean Central Presbyterian Church in Vienna. In the afternoon's sweltering heat, Mrs. Belter walked around the Fairfax County 4-H Festival in Herndon.

Mrs. Belter, who is pro-choice, highlighted roads as the biggest differences she sees between herself and her opponent.

"I support the transportation referendum," said Mrs. Belter, referring to the Nov. 5 ballot question asking voters in nine Northern Virginia jurisdictions to raise the sales tax by one-half of 1 percent to fund transportation initiatives in the region.

Mr. Cuccinelli is opposed to the referendum.

"We need to have better access to getting to work, and [the funds] are not coming out of Richmond, so it's up to us to get it done," Mrs. Belter said.

"We need the referendum to pass," said Dan Lohmann, an undecided voter from Franklin Farms, after meeting Mrs. Belter at the festival.

Republicans hold a 21-18 advantage in the state Senate. Both sides are watching this race closely. The district leans Republican — Mr. Barry was a Fairfax Republican — but Democrats have poured thousands into the campaign.

Many observers also view this election as a preview for the fall transportation referendum.

The polls in District 37 are open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Unlike the special firehouse primaries in which voters were limited in the locations they could vote, all precincts will be open.

http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20020805-98672736.htm

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