Story by Chris Graham
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A move by House Republican leaders to get outgoing Gov. Tim Kaine’s politically tone-deaf state income-tax increase up for an early vote on the House floor did what it was supposed to do.
The House voted 97-0 on Thursday to reject the proposed 1 percent state income-tax hike that Kaine offered in his 2010-2012 state budget last month.
“I am especially encouraged that the House’s action on this measure was so bipartisan, with the rejection of higher taxes securing strong support from both sides of the aisle,” Republican House Speaker Bill Howell, R-Stafford, said in a statement.
That was the intent – to basically have House Democrats kick Kaine in the pants on his way out of Richmond and up to Washington, where Kaine has assumed the full-time duties of running the Democratic National Committee as the chair of the DNC.
A news release from Speaker Howell’s office played up Kaine’s new full-time job.
Kaine had offered the tax increase as an offset to finishing the misguided car-tax relief program that Republican Jim Gilmore rode to victory in the 1997 governor’s race. The General Assembly in 2004 voted to cap reimbursements to localities under the Gilmore tax-relief plan at $950 million a year, effectively raising taxes on owners of newer-model vehicles.
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