Redstate

How big was the deficit under Gilmore? I don't know how big Virginia's budget is, so I don't know what size deficit would be reasonable. But I do know that after tax cuts, the left-leaning press starts painting ANY deficit as evil.

So how big was it?
--
If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not looking close enough to see the black and white dots.

$1.5 billion when Gilmore in 2001, and grew to some $2.1 billion by 2002 when Mark Warner took office - the largest in state history.

Near as I can tell, the total VA budget at the time was around $20 billion, making the deficit 8-11% of the total budget.

The problem, as others have mentioned was that the Virginia politicians were acting like our current federal Congress - cut taxes (a good thing) but then keep increasing spending with no way to pay for it.

~sigh~ Where are the real conservative politicians? Had there been some in Virginia in 1997-2001, we wouldn't even be talking about Mark Warner's presidential ambitions right now because he never would have won the governership in Virginia in 2001.

There is no theory of evolution, just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.

Conservatives are rare and always have been. You don't get a Gingrich or a Reagan in charge every day. Every faction has its day.
--
If you're seeing shades of gray, it's because you're not looking close enough to see the black and white dots.

I moved out of Virginia in 2000, but I thought that the Commonwealth was required to have a balanced budget?

Dana
Common Sense Political Thought

Let's put Virginia's budget in perspective before anyone accepts the liberal spin from Mark Warner's campaign for governor. Jim Gilmore ran for Governor in 1997 promising to phase out Virginia's car tax with growth revenues. When he took office in 1998, the state's two-year budget was $35 billion. Now, ten years later, the state's two-year budget is $74 billion!!! Full elimination of the car tax would require about $1.3 billion per year. So why would anyone suggest that Jim Gilmore left the state in a budget deficit? Because that became the mantra of Democrats, like Mark Warner, and liberal Republican Senators who were looking for an excuse to reverse the car tax cut and actually increase taxes. The Virginia media played along, and nobody has ever asked the question: how did Virginia's budget go from $35 billion to $74 billion if Jim Gilmore's car tax cut wrecked the budget?

In the four years that Jim Gilmore was governor, state general fund revenues (general tax revenues from income and sales taxes) increased a full 50%. Amazing revenue growth. Jim Gilmore signed upwards of 15 tax cuts during his term in an effort to curb spending growth, but tax revenues still grew from around $8 billion to $12 billion annually from 1998 to 2002. Jim Gilmore also siphoned about $1 billion of the new revenues into Virginia's "rainy day" fund, the fund that supplements state spending in the case of an economic downturn. Nonetheless, after accounting for the car tax cut, spending on social programs increased about 40% over the 4 year term. The Virginia Constitution requires a balance budget -- government can't spend more than it takes in, and, other than deposits into the rainy day fund, must spend all the revenues it takes in. So the 40% spending increase was driven by economic growth and bidding wars among the two parties in the General Assembly.

When the economy slowed in 2001, and then when the Northern Virginia economy was virtually halted for months in the Fall of 2001 (following 9/11 and the closure of National Airport and the hotels, restaurants and retailers in the Arlington area), Virginia's budget took the same downturn that happened in virtually every other state.

And here's where conservatives, who sigh about the absence of true conservatives on the American political scene, should take heart. Liberal Republicans in the Virginia General Assembly, particularly the Senate, and Democrats sought to block advancement of the phase-in schedule for the car tax cut. They argued that Virginia simply could not afford to give more tax relief when the economy and tax revenues were sliding. Jim Gilmore stood firm. He said that Virginia owed a duty to taxpayers to keep its promise. Spending had increased by 40%. If some of that spending had to be curtailed, then government should tighten its belt first. He not only insisted on advancing car tax relief from 50% of each taxpayer's tax bill to 70%, but he spent political capital to fight for it. And he won the political fight to the consternation of liberal Republicans and Democrats alike who wanted the car tax cut, and Jim Gilmore, to fail. The car tax cut advanced to 70% as promised.

Now here's the real grabber. When the General Assembly failed to pass a new budget, because the conservative and liberal legislators reached impasse, the job of cutting Virginia's spending fell directly to the Governor under the Constitution. Jim Gilmore made direct line item cuts to Virginia's spending to balance the budget. No schools were closed. No roads went into disrepair. A couple of new college buildings were delayed by a year or two. Jim Gilmore did what few politicians have ever been willing to do: he cut taxes during an economic downturn AND reduced spending to tighten government's belt. And he did this unilaterally over his own signature, assuming full responsibility for the budget reductions.

When Mark Warner took office in 2002, he immediately started the "woe is me ... sky is falling" rhetoric. The economic downturn of 2001 continued into 2002 -- in all states, not just Virginia. Mark Warner found it politically expedient to blame Jim Gilmore for the national economic downturn, the closure of Northern Virginia's economy after 9/11, and Virginia's downturn in revenues. Conveniently, he tapped the $1 billion rainy day fund left to him by Governor Gilmore without ever mentioning it. When total spending is summed up, Virginia never reduced total government expenditures from one year to the next. Government spending increased under Mark Warner each year despite the economic downturn.

The rest is history. A $35 billion bi-annual budget is now $74 billion after the two governors' terms. Mark Warner and the liberal Republicans made common cause to freeze (rather than reverse) the car tax cut at 70% for the last four years while the budget has grown exponentially (it would take about $500 million more each year to fully phase out the tax). And in 2004 Mark Warner and the liberal Republicans raised taxes about $1.5 billion annually just days before publicly disclosing a huge budget surplus generated by a rebounding economy. Proof that conservative leadership from a governor like Jim Gilmore makes all the difference -- he was the only political force standing between the liberal tax and spenders and the taxpayers of Virginia for four years.

The moral of the story is two-fold: (1) don't believe the liberal rhetoric about budget deficits in Virginia, and (2) conservatives can take heart that some true conservative leaders are still out there, we just have to look for them.