GOP to Virginia: 'Nyet'

IN VIRGINIA, Republican lawmakers in the House of Delegates are trying desperately to have their cake and eat it, too. On the one hand, they are determined to hold the line against higher taxes. On the other, they are intent on not being viewed as obstructing the first important attempt to improve Virginia's snarled roads in 20 years. Unfortunately, those two goals don't really fit on the same page. If you want to get traffic moving, it's going to cost money -- including tax money. Little wonder that the GOP has been paralyzed over the key legislative initiative of the year.

On Monday, Republican members of a House committee eviscerated a plan by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) to raise nearly $4 billion by 2010 to pay for upgrades to the state's roads, rail lines, bridges and tunnels. They objected to the governor's proposal to raise the sales tax on cars and auto insurance, among other revenue-generating ideas. In their place the Republicans proposed . . . nothing. That's right: After months of nonstop talk at all levels about the critical need for more transportation funding, House Republicans have so far made no constructive offer of their own.

If it had escaped the notice of Republicans that Virginians are angry about traffic and breakneck development, they got a wake-up call last week. In a special election to fill a vacant state Senate seat in Loudoun County, the GOP candidate, county Supervisor Mick Staton Jr., who never met a tax he liked or a development proposal he didn't, was trounced by Democrat Mark R. Herring. Mr. Staton managed to lose every single precinct in the district, including his own -- quite a feat in a corner of the state previously known as Republican territory.

A similar outcome awaits other urban and suburban Republicans whose knee-jerk response to getting serious about a long-term strategy on transportation funding is to say "Nyet." Some Republicans are talking about giving funding a bump this year using the state's current revenue surplus, as if that's an adequate answer to a problem that will be with the state for decades to come. Surpluses come and go, depending on national and regional economic conditions; counting on them to fund road construction is like counting on the weather to remain sunny indefinitely. It's particularly foolish given what every member of Virginia's legislature knows -- that in 20 years or so, all the money in the state's transportation budget will be consumed by maintenance, leaving nothing for the construction of new, wider or better roads.

Republicans may prefer user fees, tolls and a collection of the state's most obscure taxes, or any combination thereof, to pay for the improvements that Virginians demand. But squirming uncomfortably is not an option. Del. L. Scott Lingamfelter, a Prince William Republican, acknowledged that the other day, telling The Post that Republicans planned (at last) to offer a "very robust" plan.

We're waiting.