Va. House GOP leadership won’t let Dems withdraw income tax measure, forces vote on proposal

Va. House GOP forces Dems vote on income tax bill

RICHMOND, Va. — Republicans in the Virginia House of Delegates forced a unanimous vote Thursday that killed former Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine’s proposed income tax increase and the two-year budget it was intended to support.

Ninety-seven delegates — Democrats and Republicans — voted against the measure that Republicans forced to the floor with great fanfare, leaving Democrats with no choice but to spurn their national chairman or be on record as supporting a $2 billion tax boost.

One delegate, bill sponsor Robert Brink abstained on the final vote. No one voted for the bill.

Democrats were under no illusion that the bill would ever pass. A bolstered majority of anti-tax Republicans and new Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell had plainly said they would approve no tax increases to resolve a projected $4 billion revenue shortfall over the next two years.

Brink sought to withdraw the measure and avert a no-win vote for the Democratic minority.

House Democratic Leader Ward L. Armstrong of Henry County accused the GOP of provoking a partisan skirmish by staging the embarrassing vote.

“We know why this bill is before us. It’s here to embarrass us, it’s here to embarrass Tim Kaine,” Armstrong said.

“Is it fun? Are you having fun with this,” he asked, turning toward the Republicans. He said before the vote he would not support the tax increase at a time when residents of his Martinsville-area district were experiencing unemployment rates topping 20 percent.

House Republican Leader H. Morgan Griffith, accusing his counterpart of “feigned indignation,” said the fault lay with Kaine.

“Tim Kaine had a situation to deal with and he didn’t want to deal with it, so what he did was he put a land mine in the budget. He said, ‘I’m going to play this little game and it ain’t going to be fun for the new incoming governor to deal with and … I’ll leave y’all a nice little present to deal with,’ and that’s what he left,” said Griffith, of Salem.

The income tax increase wasn’t part of the budget bill that Kaine presented to lawmakers last month. It was in a separate bill that Kaine requested, raising the income tax by about $1 billion per year, with all of the revenue routed back to the localities as a substitute for $950 million in car tax reimbursements that would have been done away with under Kaine’s budget.

The reimbursements help make up for local revenue lost to the 1998 phase-out of the property tax they collect on personal automobiles.

Without the state reimbursements, localities would have to either fully reinstitute the widely despised car tax, make up for the difference by raising real estate taxes, or cut millions from their budgets to compensate for the lost state money.

In an afternoon of partisan gamesmanship, Brink sought to strike his bill, a courtesy rarely refused to a bill’s patron, and Republicans voted to reject Brink’s motion to strike his bill, forcing the no-win vote by House Democrats.