Republicans, who control the House of Delegates, said localities should raise the taxes themselves. Democrats, who control the Senate, say the General Assembly should shoulder the responsibility of imposing taxes to pay for the transportation package.Democrat Governor Kaine, for his own reasons, thinks we should all shoulder the burden of paying billions for road improvements up in breathtakingly affluent northern Virginia:
"Transportation policy should not be about what money we beg from the federal government and what hard decisions we can put on the shoulders of local governments. The court ruling at its core basically says, 'General Assembly, if you want to do this you have to do this yourself.' "
Kaine would prefer that residents - probably through increased gasoline or sales taxes - in economically depressed areas of the commonwealth like Pocahontas and Tazewell and Gate City and Bluefield and Pennington Gap pay for that which the rich up in Fairfax and Manassas and Alexandria could easily handle on their own.
It is, after all, in northern Virginia and Hampton Roads where the "transportation crisis" exists. Not in Wise or Lee or Smyth or Buchanan. The only crisis we face here in Southwest Virginia deals with an ever-growing shortage of U-Haul trucks to take the indigent and their meager worldly possessions out of here to find work.
But Kaine knows who holds the keys to his political future. And it ain't you schlubs in Big Stone Gap.
So prepare yourself. You're about to be financing that parkway construction up in Fairfax County (to Franconia). Maybe Kaine will hang a sign above the superhighway when it's completed in your honor:
THE IMPOVERISHED PEOPLE OF APPALACHIA - DESPITE THEIR EVER-INCREASING HARDSHIPS - GRACIOUSLY CONSENTED TO THE FINANCING OF THIS PARKWAY SO THAT I COULD BE ELECTED UNITED STATES SENATOR AND SALVAGE SOMETHING IN THE WAY OF A LEGACY..THE PEOPLE OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA ARE PARTICULARLY GRATEFUL THAT THE FUNDING OF THIS MULTI-LANE ECO-FRIENDLY EXTRAVAGANZA DIDN'T REQUIRE THAT THEY CUT SHORT THEIR SUMMERS IN THE CARIBBEAN..THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF VIRGINIA WOULD LIKE TO EXPRESS ITS GRATITUDE AS WELL TO THE PEOPLE OF SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA FOR KEEPING A TREND ALIVE - WHEN A DEMOCRAT IS ELECTED GOVERNOR, TAXES GO UP..IN YOUR HONOR, WE HEREBY NAME THIS HIGHWAY "THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL TOO".The Honorable Tim Kaine, Governor