William C. Flook, The Examiner
2008-05-14 07:00:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked

WASHINGTON -

Gov. Tim Kaine embarked on a statewide tour Tuesday to boost public support for his transportation funding plan before the $1.1 billion set of taxes and fees reaches the legislature in June.

Meanwhile, House Democrats defended the governor, who announced the plan Monday, and pushed back against the criticism by their majority Republican counterparts, who signaled that the proposal was too flawed to reach the House floor.

While none of the Democratic legislators would wholly endorse Kaine’s tax package, they accused the Republicans of lacking their own plan to tackle a runaway highway maintenance deficit and raise new construction funding for roads and mass transit.

The GOP leadership has yet to roll out a transportation package rebutting Kaine’s most recent offering, though members have said they want to limit the tax plans to congested regions and localities.

“Doing nothing is simply not an option,” said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Brian Moran, D-Alexandria.

Moran supports increasing the sales tax to raise transportation revenue — which is included in Kaine’s plan for Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads — and is an opponent of a gas tax increase — which isn’t.

However, the fuel tax’s exclusion is expected to lead to a clash with Senate Majority Leader Richard Saslaw, D-Fairfax.

“I think it is a decent plan, there is a lot to like about it,” said Del. Dave Englin, D-Alexandria, who called it a “good start.”

Kaine was set to speak in Woodbridge on Tuesday night before heading to Hampton on Thursday, after which he had scheduled stops at other corners of the state leading to the June 23 special session.

The governor’s proposal would raise $1.1 billion by fiscal 2014 by raising taxes on auto and retail sales by 1 percent, as well as by increasing the cost of registering a car or selling a house.

It is engineered in part to replace the revenues lost when the Virginia Supreme Court gutted last year’s transportation funding package by ruling that the regional bodies empowered to collect the fees were unconstitutional.

Supporters of solving that problem by putting the collection in the hands of local governments — such as Del. Tim Hugo, R-Centreville — said Kaine avoided a simple fix by proposing broad statewide taxes.

“We’ve got a cure for the cold, and he’s decided that’s not good enough,” Hugo said. “He wants to have a cure for cancer.”

wflook@dcexaminer.com