THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, December 31, 1994 TAG: 9412300005
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A8 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Medium: 51 lines
It's payback time for decades of leaving Republicans out of state-budget deliberations and decisions, and the Democratic leadership reacts with a petulant and partisan ``Who does George Allen think he is?'' The upstart Republican has a ready response: He is the governor overwhelmingly elected to reduce (a) violent crime and (b) state government by voters who feel mugged by either or both.
That's a start. But if Mr. Allen wants to end up with his proposed prison-building, tax-cutting budget large-ly intact, he must better convey its particulars, philosophy and projections, not just to Democrats but to his own party and the public.
Conservative projections show revenues increasing even as tax cuts mount over the five-year period; once over the hump of the '96-98 biennium, there could be a surplus of as much as tens or hundreds of millions. And as Democrats clamoring for the governor's details on $240 million in '96-'97 cuts, they are mum on how they will cut and spend - and tax? - if they reject the governor's budget and present their own.
The revenue projections got lost in a barrage of friendly and unfriendly fire after the governor dropped his budget bomb on the Assembly's money committees last week, then left its details and defense to his budget minions. One outspoken critic, Clinton Miller, had wanted the GOP nomination George Allen got; but the Republican from the Shenandoah Valley seemed to speak for others when he told the Richmond Times-Dispatch, ``They may show us that they did the greatest preplanning job since Noah. But that's not what I heard today.''
Governor Allen needn't dispatch a dove with an olive branch. As the governor's spokesman points out, the Democrats have led the legislature since living memory and never before requested or provided the kind of future budget-impact numbers Senate Majority Leader Hunter Andrews now demands of Mr. Allen. And the public's choice of more dollars for prisons over more for museums was clear a year ago.
But Governor Allen is in office for only one term; the rest of us are around for the long term. The Republican administration can argue all it likes that this will be the last term for legislators who reject the Allen tax cut. Still, since the majority leader raises the question, voters could use reassurance from the governor that instituting his low-tax, less-government budget now won't boomerang badly later. And the governor should be able, clearly, to tell them.
KEYWORDS: VIRGINIA STATE BUDGET by CNB