Posted on 11/14/2004 6:53:47 PM PST by Ligeia
Virginia's Mark Warner for President in 2008?
UNDATED (AP) - Some Democrats think their best choice to return to the White House doesn't live too far away from it.
The Washington Post reports, a growing underground and Internet movement is promoting Virginia Governor Mark Warner as a candidate for president in 2008. His name has been tossed around by major media outlets in their coverage of the just-completed election and the question of where the Democrats go from here.
Observers say Warner has succeeded in the South by supporting fiscal conservativism, gun rights, and some limits on abortion. At the same time, he convinced the state's Republican legislature to pass a one-point-five (b) billion dollar tax increase.
Warner's term expires in 2005. He says his sole responsibility right now is to Virginians.
You must work in the Governor's office.
He is most definitely NOT fiscally conservative. He isn't even running the government like a business. If he were, he would have instituted more draconian cuts than he did. The cuts he did implement were not real, as you say. If they were, then the size and scope of government would have decreased on his watch. It has not. In fact, real spending by the Commonwealth of Virginia went up - after his so-called cuts and before the tax increases.
I compare his term to Doug Wilder's. When Wilder came into office he had to cut $2B from the budget. He did that WITHOUT raising taxes AND he didn't shut down the DMV for political effect. He just did what needed to be done. I know because I worked in an agency budget office. Every other day, I had to gather more information for more cuts. And a lot of people were laid off. He is the only democrat that I admire. When Warner came into office, he had to cut $2B from the budget. What did he do? He waited 5 freakin' months before he issued his first agency spending cut. That's 5 months of payroll gone!! Then he closes selected DMV offices so as to piss off the important parts of the public so as to make his case for tax increases.
If he ran his business the way he's run this government, he'd be filing bankruptcy now.
For the record -
No tax is a fair tax. Taxes take money from the people who earned it and redistributes it to people who didn't earn it.
It's legalized theft. I highly recommend reading books and articles by Professor Walter Williams. He is an econ professor at George Mason University and he occasionally subs for Rush. He makes the case for reducing taxes better than I ever could. He's brilliant.
Car taxes are not fair. Sales taxes aren't fair. Income taxes aren't fair.
Period.
You won't get any agruement from me (but you knew that, didn't you [wink])
Not exactly. You may serve two terms as Governor of Virginia. They just may not be consecutive.
The last Governor to do this was Mills Godwin who served first as a Democrat and served his second term as a Republican.
Oh good grief!
Sorry I wasn't around to back you up. I was in a vey interesting meeting...fodder for the next RTM.
I agree that NO TAX is fair, but taxes are necessary. My point about the car tax was that at least it was a tax over which the individual had some control.
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