Examiner on Transportation Plans

By: Lowell
Published On: 7/12/2005 1:00:00 AM

Today's Washington Examiner looks at the transportation plans by the three Virginia gubernatorial candidates, Tim Kaine (D), Russ Potts (I), and Jerry Kilgore (R).  Here's an excerpt of their deconstruction of Kilgore's "plan:"

Unfortunately, Kilgore also wants to give regional authorities more power to raise transportation funds. The former attorney general must not be familiar with the awful record of the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority, whose slap dash approach to spending the money raised by the referendum was a major cause of its defeat. Counties already can raise their own road money, as Prince William demonstrated when it successfully passed a local roads referendum even as the regional one was going down in flames. The point is they shouldn't have to.

There's another problem with Kilgore's "regional" approach. Politicians are too parochial, unwilling to sacrifice for the common good. The continuing controversy over widening all of I-66, a no-brainer, is a good example. The lopsided makeup of the Senate Transportation Committee, where Tidewater members outnumber Northern Virginians 5 to 3, is another. Local and regional input is imperative, but the state should be making the tough final decisions on projects based on objective criteria, not politics.

The conservative newspaper isn't wild over Tim Kaine's proposals either.  However, the Examiner does offer important praise, calling the following idea "excellent":

Kaine's pledge not to raise any levies - including the gas tax - until a constitutional amendment that prohibits the General Assembly from making any future raids on the Transportation Trust Fund is passed should be the centerpiece of any transportation policy.

As far as Russ Potts is concerned, the Examiner has this to say:

What Potts is really peddling is a gas tax hike now in the works. Renegade Senate Republicans like himself and Finance Chairman John Chichester, R-Fredericksburg, want to disguise the uncomfortable fact that they didn't use the $1.5 billion tax hike to help solve Virginia's most pressing problem. Why voters would trust these guys with any more money is beyond imagining.

As we said, this is a very conservative editorial page.  Still, Kaine gets an "excellent" - at least for one of his ideas - and Kilgore gets slammed.  We'll take it.


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