Jim Gilmore Enters
Presidential Sweepstakes

Looking for a Conservative for '08'?

Commentary for Friday 02/16/2007 A Look at a Lesser Known Conservative

Move Over Newt: Jim Gilmore is a conservative. Socially and fiscally, Gilmore has solid credentials. Can he win the nonmination? Only with the help from the conservative wing of the Republican Party can Jim Gilmore hope to win. He is not well known outside of Virginia where he was Governor.

While Governor of Virginia: Gilmore, best known as a tax cutter, sought to give Virginians relief from an onerous car tax that had become a mainstay of the local governments finances. Local governments set property taxes on cars and trucks in their districts. The taxes were not uniform county to county, because each entity set it's own tax rate based on the value of the auto or truck. The thing to remember, is that the car tax was not a Virginia State tax, so in order to eliminate the local auto property tax, Gilmore came up with a phase out plan for the car tax, based on reimbursing the lost local revenues with state funds for individual counties.

Murphy's Law in Politics: When the Dot-Com Bubble burst in March of 2000, Virginia's economy went south. The economy in Virginia is crippled, but the local governments kept spending on a par equal to and in some instances more than when the economy was good. The reimbursement of the local governments for their revenue losses from the car tax was unsustainable. But Gilmore was adament, and would not go back on his promise to end the car tax. He refused to repeal the elimination of the car tax. I relate this to you so you can get a feel for the courage of Jim Gilmore as a conservative. The way spending was out of control is illustrated with this graph which if you follow between 1998-2002. The period Gilmore was the Governor.

Viginia's Sad Tale of Spending Excesses

The Spiraling Growth in Spending: You can see from the chart, just how out of control spending was during this period. The liberals were intent on not curbing spending levels and created a crisis with the State budget. The State went into a deficit and politics being what they are, the Democrats were able to win back the Governorship. The car tax? Well, Governor Warner (D) put the car tax relief into suspension, but later, the Virginia House voted to stop the suspension and resume the phase out of this unpopular local property tax on cars and trucks.

The Legacy of Gilmore: The saga over the car tax in Virginia is probably going to be his legacy. Daylite Sun finds that even with a valiant effort, he was not able to go toe to toe with the spending of the Democrats. The Democrats were able to out flank his efforts, and would probably do the same if he were elected President.

Robert welcomes your comment to this or any other of my commentaries.

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