Let’s summarize what Gov. Kaine suggested in proposing his solution to the looming $3.6 billion deficit:
Spending cuts: $1.2 billion
-26 percent cut from higher-education.
-$12 million cut from mental health services.
-$340.5 million cut from state and local public safety.
-No raises for state employees and required pension contributions for the first time since 1983.
-$419 million in Medicare cuts.
Tax increases/tax relief eliminations: more than $2 billion.
-$2 billion income tax increase, while eliminating the car tax.
-Eliminate the dealer discount, raising $60-$70 million annually.
-Lease out state prison beds, raising $19.8 million.
-Raise price for liquor at state-owned stores by 2 percent.
They’re a whole bunch of proposals that will mean different things for different people. Obviously it’s a sad story if you’re one of the state’s 100,000 workers and you don’t have any income boosts to look forward to. But localities could look forward to some relief from pension payments if workers start kicking in their own money, just like employees do in the private sector. Still, local governments would still be losing the car tax money, although Kaine said that income would be replaced by income tax revenues.
Business advocates could be glad the proposal doesn’t include much that would immediately impact them, besides elimination of the dealer discount–which is so small anyway that most businesses wouldn’t even feel the difference.
If you’re a citizen who lives in areas with higher crime, you might be disconcerted that $340 million could be cut from law enforcement when you consider that the state spent about $700 million on police protection last year. Now I don’t know if all the cuts would come directly out of that part of the budget, but it’s a huge amount no matter how you look at it.
[...] Paige Winfield at Virginia Watchdog parses Gov. Tim Kaine’s budget cuts and finds the state activity getting hardest hit is public safety. Let’s hope Bill Richardson and Tim Kaine don’t talk much. [...]