So THAT’S where all the money went in Virginia

The Gilmore-Warner Senate debate this morning will certainly have plenty of material for the Warnerese-English translator, but there was one point of disagreement that peaked piqued (thanks, Shaun) my curiosity (excerpt from Vivian Paige, emphasis added):

Warner: Let’s revisit one of the issues that was one of the ideological hot buttons for you, Jim. It was your reluctance to support any kind of children’s health insurance program. Even though the legislature said please let’s put in place this children’s health insurance program you said it offended your philosophical positions. Instead Virginia during your term sent back 56 million in federal dollars that were supposed to come into Virginia that instead got spent in other states to sign up kids for children’s health insurance. Jim was that the right decision, to not sign up those kids for children’s health insurance?

Gilmore:Here’s the answer, Mark. We established that FAMIS program and started it, and we actually created a program that was correct philosophically and in terms of what was best for families. It was a private health insurance, families had to have some responsibility of their own and pay a co-payment. It was not a welfare program, and gave people the dignity to know that they were taking care of themselves with the assistance of a state program like FAMIS. But when Mark Warner came in he concluded that the measure of success was simply putting people on a government welfare program and as a result he lowered the thresholds and then signed everybody up into Medicaid. And what happened was this program went up because everybody went on Medicaid the numbers on Medicaid went up. And that’s what the difference is that he hasn’t told you today. But it reflective of something. And the question is, what are the health care policies that we’re going to face in the United States Senate. Barack Obama has come forward with a health care plan that is gonna say that employers have to pay to play and that in fact they have to offer a certain type of program or they will be taxed if they are an employer, and government will impose that on you. It says that insurance companies have to offer particular kinds of benefits and control certain types of programs. And then for extra measure he puts in a government-controlled program which will squeeze out private insurance. And in fact the more Medicaid goes up like Mark’s type of program, the harder it is on private insurance options. And so the question I’ve got for you Mark, when you get to the United States Senate are you going to be supporting Barack Obama’s health care program, or will you be supporting John McCain and myself, who want to put in place a more private kind of program, a private program that creates associations and more opportunities for private care, and more opportunities for guaranteed admission into private programs, so that in fact you can utilize the private sector, or you gonna go to in fact this type of government control that Barack Obama would like to do? And I think that’s the fundamental question that we have to ask and I think we already know the answer, because when the time came on SCHIP and FAMIS, you put ‘em in a government program.

Now, as you can see, this is a serious ideological difference, but after noticing that, another thought quickly came into my head - if Warner expanded Medicaid like that, it should show up in budget numbers.  So, after doing some digging, I found out where Medicaid spending shows up in the budget (Department of Medical Assistance Services), and started looking at the changes from budget to budget.  Here’s what I found (Dept. of Planning and Budget):

Fiscal Year	DMAS Spending	Increase
2003	$3,719,897,469	13.7%
2004	$4,030,280,698	8.3%
2005	$4,563,474,648	13.2%
2006	$4,921,099,602	7.8%
2007	$5,320,510,865	8.1%
2008	$5,662,663,577	6.4%
2009 (Projected)	$5,841,781,048	3.2%
2010 (Projected)	$6,165,171,257	5.5%

As you can see, the increases were quite dramatic during Warner’s term (FY2003-FY2006).  Certainly, Warner’s decision to turn Gilmore’s private-insurance plan into another part Medicaid had something to do with that.  The question is, how much?

Well, while it’s impossible to know the exact budgetary numbers if Gilmore’s plan had been maintained, I calculated what the increases would have been if the numbers were just held to population growth (averaged at 1.2% a year) and inflation.  I should note that I did not use the regular CPI, but the health care CPI as calculated by the federal Department of Health and Human Services.  The resulting numbers were as follows:

Fiscal Year	Health Care Inf.	Pop. Growth	Spending growth	Proj. Spending ($B)	Diff. from Actual ($B)
2003	4.6%	1.2%	5.9%	$3.46	$0.26
2004	4.6%	1.2%	5.9%	$3.67	$0.36
2005	4.0%	1.2%	5.2%	$3.86	$0.70
2006	4.4%	1.2%	5.7%	$4.08	$0.84
2007	4.2%	1.2%	5.5%	$4.30	$1.02
2008	4.0%	1.2%	5.2%	$4.52	$1.14
2009	Budget # used		3.2%	$4.67	$1.17
2010	Budget # used		5.5%	$4.93	$1.24

The numbers are mind-boggling.  The extra $1.5 billion for FY05-06 is more than Warner’s entire tax hike.  Over the entire eight years, the difference is $6.7 billion - $2.2B more than raised by Warner’s tax hike over that six year period.  Imagine how that $2.2 billion could have been improved, say, our transportation network.

So, if you want to know why your taxes went up, and (for Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads) why you’re snarled in traffic, today’s debate gave the answer: it was so Mark Warner could knock out low-income private health insurance and expand government controlled health care.

Do we really want to reward the author of this costly and ideological mistake with a seat in the U.S. Senate?  Shouldn’t we instead choose the fellow who tried to prevent this budget-buster?

Cross-posted to Bloggers 4 JimGilmore

What a perfect time to jump ship, Jody

Riley at VV has the letter from my favorite State Senator (Ralph Smith) to his constituents on Governor Kaine’s decision to fire Rosy Scenario as his chief economic advisor.  The letter is definitely worth a read, but Riley’s add-on is perfect:

Gee, Jody Wagner, Gov. Timmy!’s Sec. of Finance wouldn’t have anything to do with this botch job, would she? Well, I suppose she would. And she has the audacity to think that she should be our next Lt. Governor? What a joke!

So Jody Wagner will leave the Finance Department and announce her LG candidacy (Washington Post) on the heels of her department getting caught in a major numbers no-no.  Maybe the Dems would be better off with the guy who joined the party five minutes ago after all.

Try erasing this, Barry

As the surge continues to make Iraq safer and more stable while enabling its armed forces to stand on their own, Barack Obama is working feverishly to erase all evidence that he had opposed it (Jim Geraghty).

He should have known better.

Not even Warner’s 2001 comments are immune from the translator

Sixteen seconds were more than enough for the then-would-be-Governor to slip into Warnerese.  Write Side goes to the videotape (well, sort of).  As usual, the English is bold and in italics:

I will finish the repeal of the car tax . . .

Oh, the car tax repeal will be finished, alright.  “Completed” is a whole different story . . .

. . . and Mark, I think I’ve counted - you’ve now said thirteen times that I’m going to raise taxes.

. . . and Mark, I think it’s been thirteen times you’ve made me lie to the voters.

You’ve got that one-trick pony; it’s just not going to work.

You ought to know by now that I’m a pro at lying through my teeth.  Do you really think I’m going to crack now?

The fact is, I will not raise taxes.

The fact is, I will say over and over again that I will not raise taxes until the rubes vote me in.

The rest, of course, is history.

Cross-posted to Bloggers 4 JimGilmore

Now, about the Greater Washington Board of Trade . . . (UPDATED)

Well, know I can focus on the actual Examiner story (again, h/t TQ), in which the Greater Washington Board of Trade tries to throw down the gauntlet:

The Greater Washington Board of Trade, which has helped bankroll dozens of Republican and Democratic political campaigns in Northern Virginia, says it will not give another cent to General Assembly candidates until the legislature passes broad new transportation funding.

This, of course, comes as a result of the transportation special session.  In fact, it’s a thinly-veiled threat to the Delegates and Senators: pass a tax increase or else.  As it turns out, the GWBoT could end up being Exhibit A in the law of unintended consequences.

If you look at the Board’s contributions over the last eight years in VPAP, you’ll find what looks like a middle-of-the-road profile.  However, dig a little deeper and you’ll find that the majority of donations to Republicans ($21,798 out of $41,764) were to GOP legislators who supported Mark Warner’s 2004 tax hike.  Moreover, the “other” $15K went to a “transportation” group which existed solely to convince Northern Virginians to vote for the tax hike in the 2002 referendum.  All told, more than 79% of this groups contributions were for Warner tax hike proposals or for legislators who supported them.  Take out the folks who are no longer in office, and the number passes 90%.  Keep in mind that I’m not including the $7,000 that went to supporters of HB3202 ($4,500 of which came only after the bill was passed) because most of them, led by Speaker Howell, changed their tune this year.

In other words, the legislators most likely to be hurt by this are the ones closest to the Board’s thinking anyway.  Truth be told, few of the would-be-but-no-more recipients are in close races.  On the Republican side, only two won with less then 52% of the vote last year: Danny Marshall in Southwest Virginia, and Thomas Davis Rust - who voted for the Senate tax hike (and who I hope will be facing a primary challenge anyway).  If Rust does go down one way or another, it will simply make it less likely that the GOP Delegates remaining will support a tax hike. 

Now, anything can happen between now and next November, but on first glance, I really think the Board shot itself in the foot here.

UPDATE: Riley at VV noticed that the Board’s biggest investment of 2007 didn’t get them much of a return:

The top candidate they gave to?  Chris Brown, who ran against Del. Jeff Frederick and was utterly crushed.  Good investment with that $4K, guys.

Ouch!

The DC Examiner is usually better than this (UPDATED: correction coming)

I’ll get to the main point of this DC Examiner story (h/t: Tertium Quids) in a later post, but William Flook made a bad mistake recapping the special session in the piece:

Each party in Richmond rejected the other’s tax proposals during the session .  .  . House Republicans pushed a bill that would raise money solely in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, which died in the Senate.

Wrong!  The House plan that was sent to the Senate did not include any tax increases.  Once again, readers will think the Republicans backed a tax increase when in fact that they didn’t.

UPDATE: After corresponding with the reporter who wrote this story (William Flook), I received an apology and was informed that a correction would run in tomorrow’s edition.  I’ve liked the Examiner for some time, and this quick reaction (less than an hour) only makes me like it more.

Fun with maps

Blame Doug Mataconis for pointing me to the Predict November site.  Armed only with instinct and the latest Rasmussen polls, I came up with this:

Unlike Doug, I see OH and NJ as competitive.  Even as Obama solidified the nomination for the Democrats and had is now deflated “bounce,” his lead shrank in New Jersey and McCain stayed on the right side of a statistical dead heat in the Buckeye State.

The way I see it, McCain needs to win Ohio and Virginia.  From there, it’s either shore up the west (Colorado, Nevada, and either North Dakota or Montana), or take the risk and go all-in in New Jersey (he’d still need one more state, but I’m guessing ND will fall his way).

In the twenty years I’ve been following politics, every presidential race has a WTF state (as in “What the F***?), a state that goes the wrong way for reasons no one understands at the time (it may or may not make more sense later).  In 1988, that was Maryland, which Bush somehow carried despite a Democratic advantage so strong that it was one of six states that went Jimmy Carter’s way in 1980.  In 1992, the Perot effect created more than a few WTF candidates, but I think Montana was the most surprising (Clinton is the only Democrat since LBJ to win there).  In 1996, it was Arizona (not even LBJ could carry Arizona, but Clinton did).  West Virginia edged out Tennessee for the honor in 2000 (Al Gore’s home state had a history of electing Republicans in close contests, WV hadn’t done that since 1916).  Four years later, even with the red-blue divide nicely predicting almost every state in the union, Bush still pulled an unexpected upset in New Mexico.  Looking back, though, most of the WTF moments can be easily explained (Perot for Montana ‘92; demagoguery on Social Security for Arizona ‘96; social issues and anti-radical environmentalism for West Virginia ‘00; and Bush’s surprisingly strong showing among Hispanic voters for New Mexico ‘04).

This year, I’m thinking New Jersey fits the bill.  President Bush cut his 2000 deficit by more than half (the 5th biggest gain for him in 2004), and McCain is an even better fit for the Garden State.  Moreover, before our politics re-oriented toward the cultural divide that culminated in the red-blue split, New Jersey was the most Republican state in the northeast (besides New Hampshire).  I think it could be again.

The evolving Washington Post: good news for McCain, bad news for Gilmore

The refusal of the Washington Post to follow the rest of MSM on the Iraq theatre of the WBK War has been its shining moment of the 21st Century.  The editors are not only standing firm on that, they’ve even taken Barack Obama to task for refusing to accept reality in Iraq.

Now, the Post hasn’t endorsed a Republican for president in half a century, and I don’t expect them to start this year.  It’s more likely they’ll either give a tepid endorsement of Obama or endorse no one (which they did in 1988).  Either way, however, the editors’ refusal to give Obama a pass is slowly seeping into its news coverage, as this Postpiece from Howard Kurtz on the media tilt toward Obama shows.  I remember no such Post piece during any of the previous four campaigns in which I’ve paid attention to the paper.

So, for John McCain, the press in the nation’s capital (and MSM in general) will be far better than for any Republican candidate in decades.  It should be noted, however, that it wasn’t McCain’s unusual (and for many on the right, maddening) courtship of the media but a brave editorial decision on the part of the Post that led to this reality.

That said, this is still the Post, where the center-left holds sway.  In the past, the paper has always reacted to its center/center-right shift on the national scene with more blatant partisanship locally.  We saw it in the Allen-Webb race, the 2007 elections, and the recently adjourned special session.  With no real GOP in either DC or Maryland (although recovery in the latter is likely in two years), that means the Virginia GOP will take it on the chin - again.

So, if Jim Gilmore is counting on the Post giving him the benefit of the doubt it still gives McCain and other supporters of Iraq’s liberation, he’ll be sorely disappointed.  I suspect, however, that Gilmore harbors no such illusions.  Just keep it in mind, dear reader, when the Post starts to go especially ballistic on the ex-Governor.

Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling for re-election

As readers of this blog know, I do not give my support to candidates without serious consideration, especially before the nomination process is complete.  Even though Bob McDonnell and Bill Bolling are the presumptive Republican nominees, I need more, and when the special session approached and they kept the door open to regional tax hikes, I was not comfortable endorsing either.

Bolling, however, improved dramatically, categorically ruling out all tax increases, before the special session convened.  After the session ended, Bolling once again made clear that any tax increases were unacceptable (for an idea of a more problematic post-mortem, take a look at Delegate Danny Marshall’s op-ed - at I’m Not Emeril - in which he’ll only publicly oppose statewide tax increases).

Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling, like Cuccinelli, learned from his mistake, did not repeat it, and won’t repeat it.  For that reason, I enthusiastically support his re-election.

Ken Cuccinelli for Attorney General

Although it will surprise some to read this, my decision on whom to support for Attorney General was not made until the special session ended, for reasons I will discuss later in this post.

Of the three candidates in the running, only Cuccinelli has been in Richmond dealing with the vital issues of the state.  That’s more important than it sounds.  Ever since 1993, when Jim Gilmore radically changed the image of the job, people have focused on the crime-fighting aspects of the Attorney General’s office. However, an AG does far more than that; the AG represents the state on every constitutional and national policy issue that ends up before the courts.  I particularly remember my shock at seeing Mark Earley, representing Virginia, favoring re-regulation of the airline industry less than a year into his term.  That was never an issue during the 1997 campaign; had it been, the primary might have gone very differently.

That segues to my second reason for backing Cuccinelli; the odds are very good that whoever is elected Attorney General in 2009 will be our nominee for Governor in 2017.  Earley’s record as State Senator (where he had weaknesses on economic issues) was repeated both as Attorney General and as a candidate for Governor in 2001.  It was in the latter capacity that his penchant for deviating from limited-government views opened the door for Mark Warner.  The rest is history.

So, for me, Cuccinelli’s record in Richmond was the reason I am supporting his campaign; yet it is also the reason I took so long.  As many remember, Ken made one fatal mistake last year, he backed HB3202 during one of the three votes on it in the State Senate.  He did not vote for the Kaine version, which included the unconstitutional regional taxes, but the “aye” vote he did cast turned me away from him.

When the Supreme Court invalidated the regional taxes, Ken had a reprieve.  That said, I informed him that if he expected my support, he;d have to both oppose any tax increases and propose an alternative.  Well, he did both; for me, that’s proper atonement for his error.

I have nothing against either David Foster or John Brownlee, and I would gladly support either next fall should one of them be nominated (and truth be told, I consider Brownlee the favorite), but neither has the state experience that Cuccinelli has, which will be critical for supporters of limited government - both in the AG office and the future gubernatorial campaign.