Virginia republican State Senator Walter Stosch has made the best case yet on why Virginian’s should consider electing Democrat Terry McAuliffe as Virginia’s next governor. (Note: I use a lower case “r” to denote RINO. Thus, Ted Cruz (R) and Bob McDonnell (r) are both correct. And Stosch deserves a veer small “r”.)
Now no one has ever accused Wally Stosch of being the brightest bulb in the Republican closet, but his latest email really takes the cake.
For a bit of background for those outside of Virginia or those who just don’t follow these things so closely, Wally Stosch is the Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. (Yes, I’m not kidding.)
Four years ago, Virginia’s Republicans made a case to the voters of Virginia that the Democrats wanted to raise our taxes. Bob McDonnell accused Democrat Gubernatorial Candidate Deeds of plotting to raise the gas tax and other taxes. McDonnell and all the Republicans promised to be fiscally responsible and even called it irresponsible to raise taxes in a recession. “Raising taxes will slow the economy and result in less (not more) revenue for the state,” the Republicans told us. When the dust settled on the 2009 election, the voters of Virginia decided to trust Republicans Bob McDonnell and handed him a large Republican majority in the Virginia House of Delegates. (The State Senate elections would not be until 2011 and Democrats controlled that body.)
And the Republicans fought the final budget submitted by Tim Kaine that raised taxes a couple of billion dollars. In fact, the Republicans put up such a grand argument on not raising taxes that Tim Kaine’s tax increase proposal did not get a single vote in the House of Delegates or the State Senate. Not even from Democrats. And we all know how Democrats have never met a tax increase they didn’t embrace. But the Republicans so poisoned the atmosphere for a tax increase that even Democrats were afraid to vote for it.
And things in the Commonwealth went along just swimmingly with Republicans turning over stones to find money hiding in the darndest places. Bob McDonnell even found nearly a billion dollars lost in vast wilderness of the Virginia Department of Transportation. A Billion Dollars! And one of McDonnell’s campaign goals was to fix the roads in Northern Virginia so the massive influx of Democrats hired by Obama could get to work on time to draw their government pay and bennies. And some trinket repairs were planned for the rest of the state. McDonnell planned to privatize the ABC stores and that alone would pay got transportation, we were told.
And in 2011, despite the redistricting done by the Democrats in the Senate to protect and expand their numbers, and against all odds, Virginia voters pulled off a miracle. We managed to elect enough Republicans to force a tie – 20 Democrats and 20 Republicans. With a Republican Lt. Governor presiding over the Senate and voting on ties, this was essentially a Republican takeover of the Senate. (Note: The Lt. Governor cannot vote on budget matters.)
So our fiscally Conservative Republicans now controlled both legislative bodies and the Executive branch. Voters managed to pull off a fiscally Conservative trifecta!
Or so we thought!
Turns out, the minute one party takes over, they lose their collective minds.
Led by Senator Wally Stosch in the Senate and Speaker Bill Howell in the House of Delegates and Governor McDonnell twisting arms and promising committee booty for tax increases (and the opposite for those that would not play ball), the Republicans pushed through the largest tax increase in Virginia history. Stosh and Howell, with the help of the Governor managed to get 42 Republicans and nearly every Democrat to go along with the tax hikes. (And incidentally, revenues tanked last month just as McDonnell warned a tax increase would do.)
So how do we keep Republicans from raising our taxes again? I mean, they lied to us already about being fiscal Conservatives. How do we get Republicans to once again become anti-tax?
Well, according to Wally Stosch, all we have to do is elect Terry McAuliffe and Wally will once again go back to hating tax increases and big government spending.
In an emails sent last night, Wally promises that if we elect Democrat McAuliffe the Republicans will once again regain their disdain for tax increases.
I have underlined the important parts of the Stosch email as proof of the renewed Republican effort if we take away the Republican monopoly on power in Richmond:
As Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, I have watched McAuliffe’s campaign with deeper and deeper concern.
The broad proposals he has made for new spending are not rooted in the reality of the budget. The money does not exist for them to ever see the light of day. I can tell you for certain that the General Assembly will not raise taxes to pay for his proposed new spending, nor will it raid current education, public safety, health care and transportation funding to pay for his ideas. And, we will never raid Virginia’s Rainy Day Fund to pay for his irresponsible campaign promises.
About Tom White
Tom is a US Navy Veteran, owns an Insurance Agency and is currently an IT Manager for a Virginia Distributor. He has been published in American Thinker, currently writes for the Richmond Examiner as well as Virginia Right! Blog. Tom lives in Hanover County, Va and is involved in politics at every level and is a Recovering Republican who has finally had enough of the War on Conservatives in progress with the Leadership of the GOP on a National Level.
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Why is the notion of a “RINO” the exclusive domain of one segment of the Republican party? I might suggest that we all agree on about 90% of the things you describe in this self-serving rant. Accordingly, if you accept that premise, then I think the real RINO’s are the folks that reject anything less than ideological purity. Businss people are very supportive of low taxes and fewer regulations – that sounds like something which comes right out of the Republican Creed. Yet, because most business people also have to be practical problem solvers, just saying “no”, may not always be the best way to run the business.
Does that make them RINO”s? I don’t think so….
We all need to work toward the extinction of the “RINO” by stopping the name calling and working together as a Party to be bold and open to everyone, even if we don’t agree with each other 100% of the time.
Mr. Poole is so right about “working together”, that’s why I so VERY disappointed in the HanoverGOP a couple weeks ago. The MTP was holding a fundraiser for E.W. Jackson at a local Church (that had several hundred in attendance and raised close to $10.000) while the Hanover GOP refused to come support Jackson and was carrying on w/ business as usual at their meeting where a dozen members sat to listen to Wally Stosch speak and it my understanding that he never mentioned this oh so important campaign and/or anything about “working together”. Mr. Poole, your knife cuts both ways!