GOP Candidates for Va. House Split Over Tax Stances

The candidate for the House of Delegates listened attentively as Fairfax County resident Tom Donegan expressed a few choice words for "tax-raising Republicans" in the state Capitol in Richmond.

"It's like a shell game down there; one minute they say they cut, then they raise taxes," Donegan said to Chris Craddock, a youth minister who is challenging Republican Del. Gary A. Reese (Fairfax) for his House seat in the June 14 primary.

"And they think we don't understand what's going on, but we understand that our taxes are going up," the real estate broker continued. "And these are Republicans."

Such sentiment amounts to sweet music to Craddock, who has made Reese's support for a tax increase last year the central theme of his campaign to unseat the two-term delegate.

Craddock said he is hoping that such fervor flows through the homes of western Fairfax as he takes on Reese, who is one of six GOP delegates facing a primary challenge stemming from their support for the tax increase.

"What Gary did was break a trust with Republican principles," said Craddock, 26, who is running in his first campaign. "When we work three or four months a year and it's just going to the government . . . we need to work towards a more efficient government before we raise taxes on working families."

But Reese, 60, is convinced that the anti-tax furor is limited to a vocal minority that does not have broad appeal in his community. And he is quick to point out that while he did vote for the initial plan to raise taxes by $750 million, he did not vote for the final package that increased taxes $1.5 billion in the state's two-year budget.

"When I go door-knocking in my district, no one talks about taxes," Reese said. "What do they talk about? Transportation. Education. Maybe property taxes. Those are the things that they care about." He defended his actions as necessary to ensure that the state had a budget last year.

Reese and other delegates said that their opponents and the movement that they represent hold a fundamentally flawed view of Virginia government. They said that their solutions are driven by rigid ideology and not sound policy.

Indeed, each of the anti-tax challengers outlined a nearly identical platform -- often in similar language -- based on the idea that future economic growth would provide the commonwealth with enough money for education, transportation and health care.

Each said that more government cuts could be found, and some of the challengers called for the elimination of local business taxes, capping real estate assessments and the immediate elimination of the car tax.

"This is just sound-bite politics . . . There's no there there," Reese said. "They don't understand the practicality of what's actually going on."