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.

Do you live in Cuccinelli's district? You're not listed on the Virginia page, but you seem to be knowledgeable about the area.

Another email update:

For more information about the Cuccinelli for VA Senate campaign please go to:
Cuccinelli for Senate
*****************************************************************************
Please reserve Monday, July 22 on your calendars to attend a Bar-B-Que with U.S. Senator George Allen and Ken Cuccinelli, Republican Candidate for the Virginia Senate, 37th District.
To be held at the home of:
Bob and Barbara Ledoux
12825 Shadow Oak Lane
Fairfax, VA 22033
6:30 pm
Levels of sponsorship:
Commoners of the Commonwealth: $50 per person/ $75 couple
Flag Wavers: $100 (2 tickets)
Fans of Freedom: $250 (2 tickets)
Lovers of Liberty: $500 (4 tickets)
Passionate Patriots: $1,000 (6 tickets)
[definitely creative]

The President appreciates your effort during this time of great need... :^)

I see Jay O'Brien's written a letter to the editor in support of Ken Cuccinelli.

Cuccinelli is my candidate
I want to urge Journal readers to take note of the upcoming special election on Aug. 6 to fill state Sen. Warren Barry's vacant seat.
The voters of the 37th Senatorial District have a clear choice: Ken Cuccinelli, a Republican whose commonsense conservative approach to state government is refreshing.
I am supporting Ken because I believe he is the most qualified candidate to represent Fairfax County's interests in the General Assembly.
Ken's successful experiences working with at-risk children in delinquency prevention, working in family crisis intervention, creating performance-based budget programs and working in our public schools on the SOLs, along with his work on the tax issue, make him the candidate with the broadest range of relevant experience in this race.
I have known both Ken and his wife, Teiro, for many years. They both grew up here and attended Fairfax County Public Schools and numerous Virginia universities (Ken has three different degrees from the University of Virginia and George Mason University).
Ken's commitment to our schools is simply beyond question. His education priorities include getting Fairfax its fair share of state funding and directing that funding to the classrooms to boost our anemic teacher pay and to make proven textbooks available to our kids.
Ken's opponent is suddenly talking about reducing class sizes, but she has voted twice to increase class sizes. She's suddenly talking about ``conservative fiscal policies," but she has voted for three massive budget increases in a row.
Ken's liberal opponent is suddenly trying to convince everyone that she is a moderate, and is desperately trying to hide her extreme liberal record on both fiscal issues and moral issues.
Ken has been straightforward with his positions, but his opponent appears to be avoiding taking many positions at all.
As a patent attorney, Ken understands Northern Virginia's high-tech economy. Ken will work diligently to improve local schools, raise education standards, reduce traffic congestion and hold the line on taxes and spending.
He will fight for our fair share of tax dollars to make sure Fairfax County can move forward in the coming decade.
DEL. JAY O'BRIEN
40th Legislative District
Fairfax Station

Special election pits liberal against conservative
By BILL WHEATON

There is a special election Tuesday, Aug. 6, to fill the 37th District state Senate seat vacated by Republican Warren Barry. The candidates are Democrat Catherine Belter and Republican Ken Cuccinelli (pronounced ``cooch-a-nellie").

The lines between the two candidates are clearly drawn. Belter is a fiscal and moral liberal, and Cuccinelli is a fiscal and moral conservative.

Cathy Belter is the School Board member from Springfield. Her voting record during her term indicates that she is a typical tax-and-spend Democrat, voting along with the other Democrat- and teacher union-endorsed members who are in the majority on the board.

During Belter's brief term, the school administration staff has increased 14 percent, although pupil enrollment increased only 3 1/2 percent. She also voted for a $25,000 bonus for schools Superintendent Daniel Domenech, even as test scores fell.

The Fairfax County School Board is considering whether to add ``sexual orientation" to its nondiscrimination policy and had been scheduled to vote on the measure Thursday night, but postponed it. Public opinion is running 10-to-1 against the change.

The School Board has also been advised that it does not have the authority to make the change, since ``sexual orientation" is not recognized as a category of discrimination by the commonwealth of Virginia. Arlington County sought to recognize relationships that violate Virginia's public policy and are not recognized by the commonwealth, and the state Supreme Court struck it down.

Last year, Belter voted to include ``sexual orientation" in the student resource handbook, thus supporting the homosexual agenda.

Cuccinelli is a patent and technology attorney, and also holds an engineering degree. He has been involved in Republican politics for more than 10 years and ran a very aggressive primary campaign to win the Republican nomination.

The 37th Senate District is Republican-leaning, but Cuccinelli has to be considered the underdog for two big reasons:

First, the Fairfax County Republican Party has not yet rebuilt itself after six years of membership decline under former Chairman Joe Underwood.

This past spring, I attended the Fairfax County Republican convention, which had an attendance of fewer than 200. The last county convention I had attended, six years ago, had about 1,200 in attendance.

So what are the Fairfax County Republicans doing on the Saturday before this important special election? They should be mounting a massive literature distribution and phone bank effort for Cuccinelli. Instead, they are having a picnic (which was scheduled before the special election).

The question is: What would have been the prudent course of action? Cancel the picnic, take a small financial loss, and turn out the troops in force for the election, or hold the picnic anyway and invite the candidate to leave the campaign trail to speak briefly?

Because political parties exist to debate issues and elect candidates, the prudent decision would have been the former, but the party leadership chose the latter.

The Democrats, on the other hand, are much better organized to support Belter. You won't find them at any picnic on Saturday, unless it is to promote their candidate.

The second issue that makes Cuccinelli an underdog is the massive financial support Belter is receiving from the supporters of the Northern Virginia sales tax referendum, including funds from Gov. Mark Warner, who, according to a July 4 Washington Post article, has promised to hold a fund-raiser to give her $200,000 budget a boost. He also is pictured with Belter in her campaign literature.

It appears many are seeing this election as a referendum on the referendum.

Belter, who at this writing had not responded to Cuccinelli's call to debate publicly, supports the sales tax increase, which almost everyone agrees will not solve our transportation woes.

Cuccinelli opposes the sales tax increase and has vowed to work to solve our transportation woes the right way, by fighting for Northern Virginia's fair share of revenues for transportation and education.

He believes it's unfair that Northern Virginia gets back less than half of what it send to Richmond in taxes in the form of state benefits. Fairfax County gets only 19 percent back, whereas some jurisdictions get back 250 percent.

Belter, on the other hand, appears to have no problem with this tax revenue distribution inequity.

This is a seat that the Republicans desperately need to hold. There are now 21 Republicans and 18 Democrats in the Virginia Senate. A Republican loss would put the Democrats within one seat of control, since Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine is a Democrat.

A vote for Cuccinelli is a vote for fiscal sanity and a vote against increased taxes.

Bill Wheaton lives in Falls Church. His column appears every other Friday. His e-mail address is bwheaton@cavtel.net.

You are a fine example for us all!

Email from the Cuccinelli campaign:

You are cordially invited to attend a Get Out The Vote Rally Fundraiser for Republican State Senate candidate, Ken Cuccinelli with Attorney General Jerry Kilgore as the Special Guest of Honor.
When?
Thursday, August 1, 2002
6:30--8:30pm
Where?
Fairfax Volunteer Fire Department
4081 University Drive
Fairfax, VA 22030
How Much?
$25/person
$35/couple
Please bring checks to the door.
Casual Attire
RSVP to Meredith@Cuccinelli.com or call 703-766-0635
The Special Election will be held on Tuesday, August 6, 2002. Every vote is critical. Cathy Belter's campaign has gone extremely negative and is pulling out all the stops to win. The campaign needs your support and volunteer assistance. Please call Meredith at 703-766-0635 if you can spare some time this week to lit drop, phone bank, or work the polls next Tuesday.
Thanks in advance for your support.
Ken Hutcheson

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