Tim Kaine wants to raise your taxes

The Democrats’ attempt to come across as prudent spenders is over; they’re back in tax-hiking mode.

Governor Kaine led off with a call to raise the sales tax on cars (Washington Post):

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine said Monday that he wants legislators to consider increasing the state tax on automobile sales to generate more money for highway maintenance and end the controversial fees on bad drivers.

People who buy cars in Virginia pay a 3 percent sales tax even though the state sales tax is 5 percent.

“If you are serious about transportation, why have a lower sales tax on vehicles than anything else?” asked Kaine (D). “That is my proposal. Let’s see if the legislature reaches a consensus on that or something else.”

Well, gee, Governor, if your that worried about sales tax equity, why not lower the state sales tax to 3% and impose some actual fiscal discipline to the budget?  Oh wait, I forgot; this is Virginia, the state that makes New Jersey look frugal.

Meanwhile, two other points come to mind:

1) How intellectually dishonest is it for a Governor to propose a budget without tax increases, and then decide less than a month later to change it (by ending the abusive driver fees) and asking for a tax increase?  Are we really to believe Kaine didn’t see this coming a month ago?

2) Now, the tax in question is the state sales tax on cars, not the local property tax on cars that former Governor Gilmore offset (there’s already some confusion about this on the radio and on the lefty blogs), but still, how happy must Gilmore have been to see the Post headline: “Governor Wants Car Tax Hike Weighed”?

I have used up quite a bit of bandwith explaining why I fear Gilmore cannot defeat Warner.  I still have my concerns, but if Governor Kaine keeps serving up low-hanging fruit like this . . .