The MSM goes on a pro-tax-hike bender

After watching Tim Kaine miss the boat on what the Republicans did during the special session, I’m not surprised that MSM remained as blind as he is.

The Washington Post, for example, is very sober on the WBK War and some national domestic issues (for which it has taken quite a bit of flak from lefties), but on Virginia politics it is still the screaming Democratic rag it has been for over a decade – and outside that weird endorsement of Mark Earley in 1997, for several decades.  All one had to do was look at their endorsements in the Virginia races last year to know what the Posteditors would say about the innovative and tax-less Republican plan. 

Still, one argument the Post tries to raise needs answering:

Republicans like to pretend that state transportation funding, last meaningfully increased a little more than halfway through the Reagan administration, can be addressed by diverting existing general fund money to build and maintain highways, bridges, tunnels and rails. They like to pretend that those funds are not needed for public schools, the salaries of sheriff’s deputies, the operation of prisons, or payments to Medicaid providers. The bills they offered this week on transportation — proposing to divert future tax revenue from Dulles International and Reagan National airports, for instance — were therefore fraudulent; if push came to shove, those bills would have been undone by Republicans themselves.

Allow me to be blunt; if this editorial were published anywhere else in the Anglosphere, the Virginia Republicans would sue for libel – and win.  Not to say it should be that way; I prefer the right to throw around whatever assertion pops into my head.  Clearly, the Post editors do, too, because that’s all they did here.

Are we supposed to believe that the near-doubling of the state budget in 10 years is all for schools, cops, prisons, and Medicaid?  Should we automatically assume those dollars are all spent wisely and prudently?  Should we just ignore the fact that states actually have far more control over Medicaid coverage than politicians like to admit?

The fact is, the Republicans stunned MSM, Kaine, and every other Democrat in the state by coming up with a proposal that doesn’t raise taxes and forces them to defend the bloated budget.  So it’s back to Jim Wright’s old mantra: it’s “wah on students, ole folks, and cripples” (that was an attempt by Bill Buckley to capture Wright’s accent, not a typo).

As for the Virginian-Pilot, which I remember from my time at William and Mary being basically in the position the Post is now (generally good on national security and some national issues, more flaky on state and local stuff), they managed to waste over 500 words without ever mentioning what the Republicans actually proposed.  At least the hyperbolic Post editors acknowledged the existence of an opposing policy.  Perhaps the V-P editors were just upset that the House Republicans were more interested in getting a real plan passed than letting reporters get their beauty sleep Wednesday night (and, I should note, that if I published that anywhere esle in the Anglosphere . . .).

All that aside, it’s the Richmond Times-Dispatch in whom I’m particularly disappointed, because I expected them to know better.  I was particularly put off by this:

Throughout the year we have discussed our transportation preferences. An editorial tomorrow will reiterate our arguments regarding revenue. There is no need to recapitulate the entire platform here. At least our files have copy we can re-run on slow days next year.

That wouldn’t have anything to do with the fact that they demanded higher taxes, right?  After all, if they put that in the editorial, their readers might find out the Republicans proposed a solution without tax increases, and made them look like utter fools.  Instead, their words are just as chippy, vague, and lacking in substance as the V-P’s.

The more I ponder the three reactions (note: the editors of the Free Lance-Black Hole have been surprisingly silent so far), I actually have the most respect for the editors of the Post.  Their insane hyperbole aside, they were the only ones to even acknowledge the Republicans had a plan of their own – let alone respond to it.

That said, the silence of the other papers is quite revealing.  The Post has a large chunk of its readership that will react positively to the big government manifesto.  The RTD and V-P have no such political demographic, and they know it.  Thus, they have all but conceded that the Republican plan is a political winner in Hampton Roads and suburban Richmond – and given the hemorrhaging of Republican support in those regions over the last six years due to all the prior buckling on taxes, this is a very good thing.

This is not to say the Post editorial means Northern Virginia is in the bag for the Dems on this one.  Both the Times and the Examiner have taken issue with the higher-taxes-or-else mantra.  What I am saying is that the various reactions of the papers provide a glimpse into ow the 2009 campaign will go, and it looks very good for the newly united Virginia Republican Party.