WaPo's Latest Effort To Transform the GOP

Whenever the Washington Post tries to give advice to the GOP, Conservatives should hold on to their wallets. Witness their recent endorsement of Chairman Sean -- to the unitiated, Prince William Board of County Supervisors Chairman Sean Connaughton -- for the GOP nomination for Lieutenant Governor. Was there anything more guaranteed to lose Chairman Sean votes in a GOP primary?

But now, there's today's lead editorial. You really just want to laugh. State and local governments are flush with billions in unanticipated revenues. Other journals are reporting massive increases in revenues, such as state revunues up 23% in May, and annual revenues running nearly 5% higher than the 10% increase anticipated, for a more-than 15% increase.

On the same day that such figures are reported, only the Washington Post could editorialize about the need for discussion of "how to raise the tens of billions of dollars needed for transportation over the next decade or two." How about using the billions in unanticipated revenues coming in right now!

But my favorite line is the end:

Virginia has gotten itself in trouble before by shrinking tax revenue and making new spending commitments during flush times, as it did in the late '90s under the last Republican governor, James S. Gilmore III. By assuming that the good times would roll indefinitely, Mr. Gilmore laid the groundwork for a financial crisis inherited by the current governor, Mark R. Warner. For Virginia to repeat that mistake two or three years after lifting itself from the trough would be disastrous.

Leave it to the Washington Post to make a valid observation (about unneeded "new spending commitments," though it's probably talking about car tax relief), but ignore the reasons why state spending increased irresponsibly in the late '90s: socialist welfare spending increased, while the roads and other transportation infrastructure were ignored. So what does the Washington Post call for now? More socialist welfare spending, and more taxes for transportation.

The GOP can hardly stand for slower socialism and expect the electorate to put its candidates into office. Why should voters elect slower socialists when you can vote for Democrats and get the real thing? What is necessary now is a united Republican call that the revenues derived from these "good times" should be used for the benefit of all taxpayers in the form of roads and transportation, not merely as a vote-buying scheme for the government-dependency class.

We shall see.