Virginia GOP tax-cut scheme: Let them eat hamburger
Readying for his swearing-in after his landslide victory for governor in 1997, Republican Jim Gilmore was discussing with a visitor to his transition office in downtown Richmond the promise on which he had been elected: the elimination of the hated, locally imposed car tax.
The visitor told Gilmore that, using the governor-elect’s arithmetic, the rollback would save the visitor about $8 a year — enough to buy a decent hamburger.
“But at least it will be your hamburger,” replied Gilmore, whose no-car-tax scheme proved a budget-buster that never was fully implemented but currently costs about $950 million a year — about $300 million more than his promised price tag in 1997 for total repeal, $620 million.
His initiative’s spiraling cost, which ultimately led to a bipartisan tax increase in 2004, never forced Gilmore off-message. Economic expansion — linked to the car-tax rollback — would more than make up for the lost money, he’d say with head-cocked certainty.
Read more: http://www.richmond.com/news/virginia/government-politics/jeff-schapiro/schapiro-va-gop-tax-cut-scheme-let-them-eat-hamburger/article_5ab96453-eb63-56b6-8a5f-823eb1c07cbc.html