If you hand over $10 to pay for an item that costs $8.50, you expect to get change back. If a clerk pocketed the difference instead, most Virginians would be outraged. Yet some state lawmakers evidently would see nothing wrong with such a practice: Taxpayers have overpaid the state's bills by $900 million, and certain legislators insist that the commonwealth is entitled to keep the change.
The good news is that taxpayers have allies among Republicans in the House of Delegates. The bad news is that some Republicans in the state Senate have a hearty appetite for government spending. Along with Gov. Mark R. Warner (D), they will be eager to spend the surplus money -- even on programs that are redundant or obsolete.
Consider Warner's proposal to spend more than $21 million in grants for "regional economic development in distressed communities." What would these grants accomplish that isn't already being dealt with by the Virginia Economic Development Partnership, the Department of Business Assistance and a dozen other business development programs?
Or recall Project Graduation, another of the governor's initiatives, which adds to dropout prevention efforts that already cost $10 million a year. If the existing programs are ineffective, why must taxpayers continue to fund them?
Lawmakers like to mention "transportation" in the same breath as "taxes" because that creates the impression that most state spending goes for projects that benefit us all. In fact, state income taxes don't pay for roads; transportation taxes are paid largely at the gas pump, and much of the state's money is spent on a very few people. For example, the state Department of Health and Human Services will spend nearly $8 billion this year on welfare programs. Virginians also will spend roughly as much for services for 16,000 "at-risk" youngsters as they spend for the Department of Natural Resources. The care and feeding of criminals costs Virginians more than $1 billion annually, while only a fraction of that amount -- $43 million -- is available for the state's Department of Technology.
Legislators will try to curry political favor with the education establishment by proposing spending the surplus on schools. Yet education receives more money than any other state endeavor, consuming about $11 billion of this year's $29 billion budget. True, schools are underfunded in some critical areas -- but not because the money isn't there.
The shortfall exists because lawmakers insist on deciding how the money should be spent. Instead of sending money to the school districts and allowing them to make funding decisions, the General Assembly dictates categorical spending: programs for "at-risk 4-year-olds," "early-reading intervention," "algebra readiness," "teacher remediation" and a host of other projects that may not be needed by all schools.
Further, the state's surplus might be even larger if government programs were eliminated once they served their purpose -- instead of being allowed to mutate into other forms and claim new beneficiaries. The $10 million Virginians spend annually on "cultural transition" hails back to a 1677 treaty between the Indians and Virginia. The Milk Commission is a Depression-era agency that long since has outlived its purpose. Virginia still operates two schools for the deaf and hard of hearing, even though racial segregation is mercifully past. And although almost every home in Virginia now has indoor plumbing, taxpayers still spend millions annually on the "indoor plumbing program."
If for no other reason, last year's tax increase should be repealed as a rebuke to the governor's duplicity. When Warner ran for the governorship, he promised not to raise taxes. Once elected, he began to push for tax increases. His excuse for that change was that he didn't realize the dire state of the commonwealth's finances.
Last year, Warner said that another tax increase was necessary because projected revenue was low. Once the tax increase passed, he announced the state had $677 million in "unexpected" revenue. Can't lawmakers recognize a pattern?
The General Assembly should return to taxpayers the surplus owed them from overpaying their bills. No one sent taxes to the state treasury with instructions to keep the change.
