William C. Flook, The Examiner
2008-07-10 07:00:00.0
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WASHINGTON -

The Republican-controlled Virginia House of Delegates killed one of the last hopes for raising billions of dollars in new transportation funding on Wednesday despite Democrats’ move to take a proposed increase in the gas tax off the table.

The House defeated the Senate’s proposed tax package, which proponents estimated would have raised $5.5 billion for road and rail projects over the next seven years, by a 59-39 vote. The widely expected decision came on the first day of the second act of a special General Assembly session that looks on track to accomplish very little.

Earlier in the day, a House panel resurrected Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine’s proposal, after appearing to kill it two weeks ago.

The Senate’s narrow Democratic majority had passed its bill June 25 with a provision that would have increased the state’s 17.5-cent gas tax by a cent a year for six years. House Democrats stripped that increase in an unsuccessful attempt to make the tax package more palatable to opponents.

The bill still would have increased the car titling tax by 0.5 percent and the sales tax by 0.25 percent statewide, while cutting the sales tax on food by 0.5 percent. In Northern Virginia, it would have raised the sales tax by 0.5 percent, the tax on selling a house by 40 cents per $100 value, and the tax on staying a night in a hotel room by $5.

“The House Republicans killed a plan that brought us one step closer to a transportation solution yet failed, for years, to come up with a comprehensive plan of their own,” said Senate Majority Leader Richard Saslaw, the bill’s patron.

The remaining statewide taxes included in the Senate’s plan appeared to be enough for opponents to kill it. The House’s Republican leadership has repeatedly accused Democrats of seeking tax increases that reach beyond the main purpose of the special session, which is to restore regional revenue from last year’s transportation package that were deemed unconstitutional by the Virginia Supreme Court. The state’s high court ruled in February that the unelected authorities empowered to collect the new fees in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads could not do so under the Virginia Constitution.

A Republican plan to raise money solely in those two traffic-congested regions was still alive Wednesday evening, but is expected to be killed in the Senate.

wflook@dcexaminer.com