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TAX WAR: Why Sen. Chichester is wrong

FAIRFAX COUNTY (March 31, 2006) - - The Virginia General Assembly is deadlocked over higher taxes for transportation. The Republican-controlled state Senate favors a second billion-dollar tax hike in two years. The Republican-controlled House
of Delegates says no.

The delegates are right. Nevertheless no one has really responded to
the arguments advanced by Senate Finance Committee Chairman, John
Chichester, who advocates raising taxes even though there is a large
budget surplus. Last July, in a piece entitled “Virginia is not on
Automatic Pilot,” he stated:

"During a recent five-year period, Virginia’s population grew about 7
percent. However, the prison population grew 28 percent, and our court
caseload, higher education enrollment, and number of public school
special education students each grew 15 percent. Medical cost inflation,
which drives Medicaid, one of our largest mandated programs, was more
than double that of general inflation.”

The senator then pointed out that seventy-five percent of Virginia’s
taxes go to education, Medicaid, and public safety. He thus concluded
that we cannot allocate budget surpluses to transportation or tax cuts.

Senator Chichester’s arguments are flawed.

He does not acknowledge that for 25 years, Virginia state and local
spending for public schools has been increasing ten times faster than
enrollment, even after adjusting for inflation. Nor does he acknowledge
that public-school staff in Virginia has over the same period been
increasing seven times faster than enrollment.

While inflation-adjusted public-school spending far exceeded enrollment
growth, inflation-adjusted transportation spending generally trailed
population growth over the same 25-year period.

Despite soaring school spending, there has been no significant increase
in student achievement. Programs to help minorities and
learning-disabled children do not work, largely due to the public
schools’ hostility to phonics-based reading instruction and an
over-emphasis on hand calculators.

Black SAT scores in Virginia remain at the 20th percentile and Hispanic
scores are at the 40th percentile, while Whites and Asians score near
the 60th percentile. Special Education is an expensive bureaucratic
process that produces an Individualized Education Plan and then returns
children to the same curriculum that had failed them in the first place.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 65 percent of
Virginia school children score below grade level. Virginia is slightly
better than the national average: Nationwide, 70 percent of school
children score below grade level.

Regarding prisons, that inmate population is increasing four times
faster than overall population (28 percent growth compared to 7 percent)
is an ignored crisis. It is likely that most inmates did not learn how
to read in public schools and came from fatherless welfare families.
Government reinforces our promiscuous culture by still giving subsidized
housing, food, medical care (Medicaid), and childcare to women who have
children out of wedlock.

Medicaid also provides long-term nursing-home care to the elderly poor –
or does it? With the right lawyer, any well-to-do family can qualify.
In fact Virginia’s previous Governor, Mark Warner, joined a bi-partisan
panel of governors who recommended closing this loophole. The same
panel also recommended requiring a co-payment for Medicaid services,
which would discourage frivolous use of expensive medical resources.

Few Virginians know that not a penny of state income taxes goes to
transportation. Also, only five percent of sales taxes goes to
transportation. Education, Medicaid, and welfare are allowed to
monopolize these fast-growing revenues.

You would think that those opposing tax hikes would cite former Governor
Warner’s support for Medicaid cuts, cite the statistics on public school
costs versus test scores, and challenge a system of government welfare
and government schools that sends our most vulnerable children to prison.

However, all we get is silence. Politicians, fearing that the powerful
teachers unions would pillory them, dread cutting public-school,
welfare, and Medicaid funding.

As long as these programs escape scrutiny, public schools will continue
to fail Hispanics, Blacks, and the learning disabled. Welfare will
continue setting up a disproportionate number of young men for prison.
Medicaid will continue to invite abuse of the healthcare system. And
taxes will continue to climb.

Arthur G. Purves
President
Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance
www.fcta.org