Here’s Jim Gilmore, ex-governor, talking about the current governor’s lack of honesty.
Hmm… lack of honesty? I think someone needs to look in a mirror. First, he’s whining about how the new Virginia budget will have some taxes raised. Keep in mind he’s not mentioning the Republicans control both houses of Congress in the state, and have submitted their own budgets, which also raise some taxes.
He complains that if it needed to happen, Governor Warner should have campaigned telling voters he would raise taxes. This is where the rank hypocrisy is. First of all, the fallout from Gilmore’s illconceived (but election winning) promise to eliminate the car tax is a significant part of why the state is running a deficit in the first place. It’s dishonest to say you can cut taxes but still have all the services you had before (although Bush is getting away with it for the moment). It worked for a little while because the economy was on an upswing, thereby increasing incomes and tax revenues, but when the bubble burst, the problem was revealed.
And while we’re on the subject of campaign promises, Gilmore and honesty, I don’t recall any pledges from him on eviscerating the Virginia Department of Transportation, but that’s exactly what he did. Check out this letter by a former head of VDOT, where he discusses Gilmore’s decision to downsize senior management, then VDOT was forced to hire them back as consultants at 25-45% more. “Governor Gilmore said Virginia would have the ‘largest construction program in Virginia’s history’. He authorized about 400 new jobs. One day after the Warner administration took office, we found we could not pay for it; nor would VDOT have been in position to manage it”.
Gilmore is the last person who should complain about anyone lacking honesty.
Grrr. Makes me mad enough to make this a letter to the Post.