Budgets of Glimore vs. Warner
414 words.
I’ve been watching the recent exchange* between Waldo and Spank with interest.
In the minds of Virginia bloggers at least, the Warner vs. Gilmore Virginia Senate race basically comes down to a single issue: Mark Warner breaking his pledge not to raise taxes. Gilmore supporters will spend all their time reiterating it, while Warner supporters will spend all of their time defending it.
The Warner camp says he had to raise taxes because Gilmore left a much worse budget situation than he let on, while the Gilmore camp counters that the budget was fine and Warner lied and raised taxes because that’s just what those evil socialist Marxist communist tax-and-spend Democrats do. (Possibly an exaggeration, but not by much.)
So I’ve been wondering how a diligent voter would go about finding the middleground of truth on this issue. I myself wasn’t paying attention to politics when Gilmore or Warner was governor, so I have no memory of what happened. And clearly we can’t trust what either campaign is saying about it during election season. So what to do?
Oddly enough, I discovered part of the answer amidst Spank’s otherwise evasive drivel: The Virginia Department of Planning and Budget web site.
After scanning the budget tables on that site, I can see why Gilmore has an uphill climb in this election (aside from his general lack of charisma). For the average voter, myself included, tables of budget numbers are completely unintelligable and incredibly boring to look at. Not many people are going to sift through all those numbers and figure out what they mean, so they are going to have to rely on radio sound bites and newspapers to summarize it for them. And unfortunately for Gilmore, Waldo is correct: Most media reports that I’ve ever seen on this subject say that Mark Warner saved us from Gilmore’s budget train wreck.
I’m not saying that’s true — I can’t say one way or another because I won’t be able to get anything out of those budget tables without sitting down for days of painstakingly unrewarding study. But if I were to guess based just on human nature and past observations of politicians, I would say that both sides are probably padding the numbers for their own benefit. Big surprise, there.
So I guess it’s time to sit down and learn how state budgets work.
* By “exchange,” I mean Waldo making a thoughtful remark followed by Spank trying to twist everything around and embarrass himself.
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