The Winchester Star today carried this quote from Tim Kaine on the Budget impasse:
"I am going to do the job that the people elected me to do - which is to run the state," [...] "I am working behind the scenes as much as I can to get [the Senate and House of Delegates] to find compromise, but I am also trying to figure out what I will do to carry out the duty the people have entrusted me with" [...]
Checking my watch, today, I see that it's May 9th.
Most days that would just mean it's a nice spring day. Today, however, also marks the single longest period of time that the Virginia Government has gone without a budget.
Well, it's a nice spring day. All this budget stuff doesn't really effect me, right?
WRONG!
City and county governments are starting to feel the crunch as reimbursements for local programs dry up.
If you sit in traffic for hours at a time like millions of other Virginians, you know that this battle is critical to the money you can make, the time you can spend with your family, and the level of frustration you can take in everyday life. If you think through all of the critical services Virginia State Government supports, you know that the danger here is ominous and real.
Failing to fund the critical services of the Virginia State Government amounts to criminal negligence, and the responsibility for this rests firmly with obstructionist Republicans in the House of Delegates.
These House Republicans don't believe there is a political price to be paid for all of this.
If this budget impasse goes on beyond July 1, the Government will come to a complete halt. Tim Kaine is looking to exhaust every legal option to keep government running, because that's what responsibile government is all about, but there's only so much he can do.
"There are some powers the governor has, and, again, I am not going to give advanced legal opinions, and maybe we will never get there. Maybe they will pass a budget. I am not going to let the inaction of others deprive me of my responsibility."
Tim Kaine, Democrats in the House and Senate, and Republicans in the Senate are working hard to overcome the backward looking obstructionism of House Republicans. Still, why aren't people paying attention to this.
Maybe as we get closer to the July 1 deadline, people will start to wake up to the prospect of closed schools, reduced police, stalled courts, reduced utility services and all of the other disastrous implications of Virginia without a government.
There's a disaster on the horizon, but I trust Tim Kaine to do the job we elected him to do.
Speaker Howell and Majority Leader Griffith are both from districts where there is no transportation crisis. But if they can't do their job then the election in 2007 is going to be about the statewide shutdown that they ochestrated. And their attempt to separate the transportation budget from the rest of the state budget was pure incompetence.
They would do well to remember what these shenanigans did for the last anti-government Republican, Newt Gingrich -when he let the Federal budget go unpassed and the government shut down.
Wake up Virginia Republican delegates - that play book Grover Norquist gave you is dangerous to your political career. Move on and get it done.
The only people that Tim Kaine looks bad to are those few Republicans who applaud howell for this stunt, and I really doubt he cares that you don't like him
When the Federal Government has to raise taxes on the poor and middle class in order to keep the wealthy super wealthy and happy and stupid enough to vote against their, their children's, and the entire country's best interests...well, it is going to trickle down to raising taxes in the states and localities. I know, CRAZY. Yay Bush.
–Gubernatorial candidate Tim Kaine, on WRVA radio in Richmond, on November 3, 2005 — five days before Election Day.