Washington Times endorses Gilmore

The editors of the Times simply cut through the fog of Mark Warner's rhetoric and looked at the truth:

. . . Mr. Gilmore is strongly opposed to the $700 billion mortgage-bailout bill passed by Congress earlier this month; Mr. Warner supported it.

Mr. Gilmore favors making permanent the federal tax cuts enacted by Congress in 2001 and 2003. Mr. Warner, by contrast, has suggested repealing tax cuts on persons whose family income exceeds $250,000 a year.

. . .

Mr. Gilmore favors offshore oil drilling in Alaska and off the Atlantic Coast. Mr. Warner opposes drilling in Alaska and says more study is needed before drilling is permitted off the Atlantic Coast. Mr. Gilmore opposes and Mr. Warner favors the Orwellian-titled Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it much easier for labor unions to coerce workers into joining.

As governor, Mr. Gilmore is best known for his work to repeal the oppressive car tax. Mr. Warner's major political achievement as governor was his success in pushing a $1.4 billion tax increase through the General Assembly in 2004. Only weeks after passage of the tax increase (which Mr. Warner asserted was essential to balance the budget), state officials acknowledged that Virginia was actually running a budget surplus. (In other words, Mr. Warner's dire warnings of imminent fiscal collapse had been proven false.)

It's easy to see why - as the Times put it - "Mr. Gilmore would be the superior choice."

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal

How Warner's 1994 comments and his support for the bailout are related

I was considering cross-posting my comments about Mark Warner's 1994 slam against home-schoolers and right-to-lifers, but as the first half of said post included a rehash of what SWAC Girl already cross-posted, I figured I should just get to the point.

That point is this; you may think Warner's little rant is unrelated to today's pressing issues, but if so, you'd be wrong. It's revealing for this reason (an excerpt from my RWL post):

The Dem nominee is the poster-boy for the “limousine liberal” (as Bob Novak calls them), wealthy politicos who vote for the Democrats on social or foreign policy issues, but mainly driven by an elitist snobbery that has no use for ordinary Virginians or what they think.

Until this year, “limousine liberals” did most of their policy damage on cultural or security issues, but the events of the past month have revealed something new: their elitism has become part and parcel of the herd mentality at the top that led to mass hysteria over the financial markets.

The Mark Warner of 1994 was an out-of-touch elitist who was slamming ordinary Virginia voters in partisan speeches. The Mark Warner of 2008 is still out of touch, but he is now part of an elite gone mad on financial issues.

Will the Mark Warner of 2009 be in a position where his weakness for hysteria can do real damage? Or will Virginians recognize the danger in time go with the safer
pair of hands - namely Jim Gilmore’s?

We have four weeks to stop the insanity.

Good Morning, it is now a different race

In the four months or so that I have posted in this space, I'd like to think I gave Mark Warner the rough treatment he deserved. I will confess, however, that I was less enthusiastic than most over here about heaping praise on Jim Gilmore. As one of the leading Bob Marshall bloggers, I must admit that his narrow loss hurt deeply, and while Gilmore was and is certainly head and shoulders above Marky Mark, it was more difficult for me than most to get behind him with zeal.

That all ended for me when I came across Gilmore's fervent opposition to the Paulson-Pelosi-insert-establishment-politician-here bailout (Tim Craig, Washington Post, emphasis added):

Gilmore came out strongly against the $700 billion plan, arguing in a concise way that it amounted to government run amok. Warner supported the bailout, saying it was needed to prevent economic turmoil. Warner tried to pin the need for Congressional intervention on lax oversight by the Bush administration and "greed" on Wall Street.

Warner noted that both Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama voted in favor of the plan, prompting Gilmore to say at one point, "I'm not in this for John McCain, I am in this for the people on the other side of this camera."

For once, Warner's efforts to turn the contest into a referendum on Gilmore's record as governor was overshadowed by an issue of more immediate concern. The only thing anyone who watched the debate will probably remember tomorrow is the word "bailout."

You got that right, Tim.

Of all the issues on the domestic front, this one was the biggest. Wall Street went into a panic, which promptly infected Washington and led the Administration and Congress into mass hysteria. Two weeks and $700 billion later, the entire episode cast a pall on democracy as we know it, while the free-market ideal (which didn't actually have anything to do with what went wrong) fell victim to the cross-fire. It was an ugly spectacle that revealed the American "elite" to be a bunch of ignoramuses with a dangerous herd mentality.

Friday night, Virginians were given a clear choice on a dramatically important federal issue. No historical arguments about who was the better governor. No Marky Mark distractions and obfuscations that required the Warnerese-to-English translator. On Friday night, Mark Warner revealed himself as the guy who will stand for the elites and stand on ordinary Virginians.

Jim Gilmore, meanwhile, revealed himself as the guy with the level head, the fellow with the better grasp of the state of our economy, and the guy who will stand up for each and every one of us and stand up to the elites of both parties.

Don't tell me this race is "over." Every single vote cast for Jim Gilmore is a vote against that bailout. More importantly, every vote cast for Jim Gilmore is a warning to Washington never to do something this stupid again.

That message will be much louder with 40% of the vote than 30% . . .

. . . 45% will make it louder still . . .

. . . and, if we can pull Gilmore up to 50%-plus-one, the message will reverberate through the country like an earthquake.

Don't tell me Gilmore can't catch up either. I remember a Republican "blue-blood" in New Jersey who was running more than twenty points behind with less than three weeks to go in the campaign. She ran on an anti-tax, populist platform, too. The elites laughed hysterically. Establishment types in both parties declared here a sure loser.

Yet on Election Night 1993, Christie Todd Whitman shocked the world and beat Jim Florio. The anti-tax shock waves rippled across the land and set up the GOP for the 1994 landslide. Meanwhile, Washington hasn't enacted a tax increase since.

Every vote matters now: win, lose, or draw. This isn't about personal battles for glory or reputation. This isn't even partisan anymore. This is us versus them, the sensible electorate versus the skittish and panicky elected, the sane masses versus an elite gone mad.

Jim Gilmore would have had my vote by default, but he's earned it now, and if you're a Virginia voter reading this, any Virginia voter reading this, he's earned your vote, too.

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal

Jim Gilmore, VA's 9/11/01 Governor, remembers that day

JIM GILMORE SALUTES FALLEN PATRIOTS OF 9/11 - “We must continue to do everything we can to keep America safe and free.”

In commemoration of the anniversary of September 11th, former Gov. Gilmore and his wife Roxane today attended the Pentagon Memorial dedication event held this morning, honoring the 184 patriots whose lives were lost at the Pentagon and on American Airlines Flight 77, during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Following the solemn event, Gov. Gilmore offered these moments of reflection from that day:

"Just like our parents and grandparents could vividly remember exactly what they were doing on December 7, 1941, current generations clearly remember where they were on 9/11 when the planes hijacked by terrorists were crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

"I found myself at the Governor's mansion in Richmond that morning preparing for a busy day of work at the State Capitol. While watching the morning’s news, Roxane and I became aware a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers in New York City and jointly watched as the second plane was deliberately flown into the second tower. As the chairman of a bipartisan commission on homeland security which had warned about the possibility of a terrorist attack on American soil, I immediately began the process of putting Virginia's emergency operations on alert. And, as I did so, the Pentagon was attacked killing 184 Americans right here in our Commonwealth of Virginia.

"As the day developed, I traveled to the Pentagon site to meet with the first responders working to help those hurt in the attack. Later, I visited the hospitals where survivors, and some of the firemen who had been injured as they worked to rescue the victims of this horrid attack, were being treated. The scenes of valor and heroism of that day are forever etched in my memory and continue to inspire me to this day. I hope this day reminds every American to stay vigilant against future terrorist attacks and that we continue to do everything we can to keep America safe and free."

May we never forget.

Cross-posted at SWAC Girl

Listen to the Mark Warner supporters cheer

Pro-Tax, Anti-Energy, Anti-NRA, Anti-FreeSchool, Anti-Christian
That is a WARNER Supporter. Are you?

Mark Warner has been contradicted by . . . Mark Warner

Former Governor and current Senate candidate Mark Warner has been spouting for months that he had to raise taxes on Virginians in 2004 in order to balance the budget (perhaps you've seen him mention this on TV). Well, now we have found someone who can put that nonsense to rest.

His name? Why, it's Mark Warner! Here's what I mean (Heartland Institute, emphasis added):

The governor’s proposed biennial budget includes nearly an 8 percent increase in FY 2005 and nearly 4.5 percent increase in FY 2006. The governor has suggested the $1 billion tax package is needed to prevent cuts in the budget, fully fund Medicaid, re-fund the rainy day fund, and implement “standards of quality” (SOQ) improvements in education.

Now, "fully fund Medicaid" sounds innocent enough, but in reality it meant continuing Warner's policy of expanding socialized medicine, a plan that added over $1.5 billion in spending to the FY05-06 budget, more than Warner's entire tax increase.

Mark Warner knew even in 2004 that his tax increase was not necessary, but he hid the new spending behind the "fully fund Medicaid" phrase in the hope that voters, the press, and legislators wouldn't notice, and it worked - until last weekend.


I've asked before; I'll ask again. Do we really want a Senator who busted the state's finances in order to move Virginia closer to the "single payer" health nightmare? Wouldn't it be better to vote for the guy who refused to do this?

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal

So THAT'S where all the money went in Virginia

The Gilmore-Warner Senate debate this morning will certainly have plenty of material for the Warnerese-English translator, but there was one point of disagreement that piqued my curiosity (excerpt from Vivian Paige, emphasis added):

Warner: Let’s revisit one of the issues that was one of the ideological hot buttons for you, Jim. It was your reluctance to support any kind of children’s health insurance program. Even though the legislature said please let’s put in place this children’s health insurance program you said it offended your philosophical positions. Instead Virginia during your term sent back 56 million in federal dollars that were supposed to come into Virginia that instead got spent in other states to sign up kids for children’s health insurance. Jim was that the right decision, to not sign up those kids for children’s health insurance?

Gilmore: Here’s the answer, Mark. We established that FAMIS program and started it, and we actually created a program that was correct philosophically and in terms of what was best for families. It was a private health insurance, families had to have some responsibility of their own and pay a co-payment. It was not a welfare program, and gave people the dignity to know that they were taking care of themselves with the assistance of a state program like FAMIS. But when Mark Warner came in he concluded that the measure of success was simply putting people on a government welfare program and as a result he lowered the thresholds and then signed everybody up into Medicaid. And what happened was this program went up because everybody went on Medicaid the numbers on Medicaid went up. And that’s what the difference is that he hasn’t told you today. But it reflective of something. And the question is, what are the health care policies that we’re going to face in the United States Senate. Barack Obama has come forward with a health care plan that is gonna say that employers have to pay to play and that in fact they have to offer a certain type of program or they will be taxed if they are an employer, and government will impose that on you. It says that insurance companies have to offer particular kinds of benefits and control certain types of programs. And then for extra measure he puts in a government-controlled program which will squeeze out private insurance. And in fact the more Medicaid goes up like Mark’s type of program, the harder it is on private insurance options. And so the question I’ve got for you Mark, when you get to the United States Senate are you going to be supporting Barack Obama’s health care program, or will you be supporting John McCain and myself, who want to put in place a more private kind of program, a private program that creates associations and more opportunities for private care, and more opportunities for guaranteed admission into private programs, so that in fact you can utilize the private sector, or you gonna go to in fact this type of government control that Barack Obama would like to do? And I think
that’s the fundamental question that we have to ask and I think we already know the answer, because when the time came on SCHIP and FAMIS, you put ‘em in a government program.

Now, as you can see, this is a serious ideological difference, but after noticing that, another thought quickly came into my head - if Warner expanded Medicaid like that, it should show up in budget numbers. So, after doing some digging, I found out where Medicaid spending shows up in the budget (Department of Medical Assistance Services), and started looking at the changes from budget to budget. Here's what I found (Dept. of Planning and Budget):

Fiscal Year DMAS Spending Increase
2003 $3,719,897,469 13.7%
2004 $4,030,280,698 8.3%
2005 $4,563,474,648 13.2%
2006 $4,921,099,602 7.8%
2007 $5,320,510,865 8.1%
2008 $5,662,663,577 6.4%
2009 (Projected) $5,841,781,048 3.2%
2010 (Projected) $6,165,171,257 5.5%

As you can see, the increases were quite dramatic during Warner's term (FY2003-FY2006). Certainly, Warner's decision to turn Gilmore's private-insurance plan into another part Medicaid had something to do with that. The question is, how much?

Well, while it's impossible to know the exact budgetary numbers if Gilmore's plan had been maintained, I calculated what the increases would have been if the numbers were just held to population growth (averaged at 1.2% a year) and inflation. I should note that I did not use the regular CPI, but the health care CPI as calculated by the federal Department of Health and Human Services. The resulting numbers were as follows:

Fiscal Year Health Care Inf. Pop. Growth Spending growth Proj. Spending Diff. from Actual
2003 4.6% 1.2% 5.9% $3,463,755,841 $256,141,628
2004 4.6% 1.2% 5.9% $3,666,565,673 $363,715,025
2005 4.0% 1.2% 5.2% $3,858,987,039 $704,487,609
2006 4.4% 1.2% 5.7% $4,077,127,859 $843,971,743
2007 4.2% 1.2% 5.5% $4,299,347,635 $1,021,163,230
2008 4.0% 1.2% 5.2% $4,524,977,399 $1,137,686,178
2009 Budget # used 3.2% $4,668,108,365 $1,173,672,683
2010 Budget # used 5.5% $4,926,526,222 $1,238,645,035

The numbers are mind-boggling. The extra $1.55 billion for FY05-06 is more than Warner's entire tax hike. Over the entire eight years, the difference is $6.74 billion - $2.2B more than raised by Warner's tax hike over that six year period. Imagine how that $2.2 million could have been improved, say, our transportation network.

So, if you want to know why your taxes went up, and (for Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads) why you're snarled in traffic, today's debate gave the answer: it was so Mark Warner could knock out low-income private health insurance and expand government controlled health care.

Do we really want to reward the author of this costly and ideological mistake with a seat in the U.S. Senate? Shouldn't we instead choose the fellow who tried to prevent this budget-buster?

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal

More economic illiteracy from Mark Warner

As the question of oil supply continues to dominate the U.S. Senate campaign here, Mark Warner expressed his skepticism on Jim Gilmore's assertion that drilling for oil - even if it would take years for the oil to get to market, would reduce its current price (Daily Press):

"There's no serious policymaker or economist who predicts that," Warner said. "I
know it's political season, but some of this is basic math."

Actually, Mark, it's about economics, but you've already proven you know nothing about that, so you might want to pay attention.

Like most commodities, oil not only has a current price, it also has future prices. One of the biggest drivers in the current price of oil has been the surge in its future price (if a gap is created between the two, an investors can sell the higher and buy the lower, ensuring a nice profit until everyone else catches on and the two prices return to rough equal). The future price of oil is driven by several factors - turbulence in the Middle East, the rise in demand from Communist China and India, and no major exploration moves by the United States.

So the idea that a decision to drill more now would have no effect on oil prices is based on pure economic ignorance. How can I say that? Take a look at this (Larry Kudlow, NRO - The Corner):

In a dramatic move yesterday President Bush removed the executive-branch
moratorium on offshore drilling. Today, at a news conference, Bush repeated his
new position, and slammed the Democratic Congress for not removing the
congressional moratorium on the Outer Continental Shelf and elsewhere. Crude-oil
futures for August delivery plunged $9.26, or 6.3 percent, almost immediately as
Bush was speaking, bringing the barrel price down to $136.

. . .

Traders
took a look at a feisty and aggressive George Bush and started selling the
market well before a single new drop of oil has been lifted. What does this tell
us? Well, if Congress moves to seal the deal, oil prices will probably keep on
falling. That’s the way traders work. They discount the future. Psychology and
expectations can turn on a dime. The congressional ban on offshore drilling
expires September 30, so that becomes a key date.

Indeed.

President Bush's lifting of the ban does two things: removes a barrier to future drilling, and all but ensure the Congressional barrier is gone as of October 1 (unless Congress can override a Presidential veto on maintaining the ban - highly unlikely now).

So, not only did the market react to future drilling (contrary to Warner's claim), it actually reacted to expected future drilling. Not only has this happened "before a single new drop of oil," it happened before anyone could even begin drilling by law.

Imagine how far it would fall if, say, the candidate in Virginia who made support for oil drilling his signature issue was elected to the U.S. Senate!

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal

The Washington Post rewrites Virginia history

It's not easy being the editorial staff of the Washington Post. As the only MSM newspaper that continues to support the liberation of Iraq, the Post takes it on the chin from the left in ways we on the rightosphere can't even contemplate. Not even the paper's ridiculous and shameful takedown of George Allen (which actually spawned a need for political cover that led to the hilarious endorsement of Bob Ehrlich) has spared it.

Usually, the Post tries to rebuild its left-wing credibility by whacking Virginia Republicans (the Maryland GOP will be off-limits for a while in light of the Ehrlich incident), and over the weekend, they went after Jim Gilmore. Ostensibly the Post's editorial-page hit-job was for "those many thousands of Virginia residents who are new to the state or are newly of voting age" who are not aware of Gilmore's record. Unfortunately, they won't be any better informed after reading the editorial than they were before.

The errors in the Post piece are numerous and far-reaching, beginning with the initial paragraph:

It may seem odder still to watch prominent fellow Republicans either endorse Mr. Gilmore's Democratic opponent in the Senate race, former governor Mark R. Warner go mute when asked whom they support.

Actually, newer Virginians might understand this better than the editors. Given the history of Gilmore's "prominent fellow Republicans" (State Senate GOP: four tax increases proposed in five years; House of Delegates GOP: two tax increases enacted in five years), they're probably more likely to find favor with a GOP nominee that this crowd does not like.

The next paragraph has plenty of vituperative language, but no actual facts, so it's better skipped, especially since the "evidence" in the later paragraphs are also miles from reality, such as:

In Mr. Gilmore, Virginia had its very own Herbert Hoover. "State government is in sound financial shape," he declared sunnily in August 2001, even as state lawmakers from both parties predicted a $500 million revenue shortfall in the commonwealth's $25 billion budget . . .

For starters, Virginia's budget was not $25 billion when Gilmore left office; it was nearly $47 billion. In fact, the shortfall the Post cites was just over 1% of the budget, hardly a cataclysmic event. In fact, even the Post admits that the state was well-equipped to handle the problem:

Today, Mr. Gilmore innocently states that on leaving office in 2002 he bequeathed a balanced budget and $1 billion in reserves.

So, Gilmore's successor, even with a shortfall of $500 million, could have kept the state on sound fiscal footing.

What happened between August of 2001 and January of 2002? You guessed it, 9/11, not that the Post thinks that's important:

Mr. Gilmore's allies sometimes argue that no one could have foreseen the economic effects of the Sept. 11 attacks, which occurred four months before he left office. True enough, but also irrelevant: The problem had swollen to major proportions well before the attacks, and Mr. Gilmore ignored it.

Gilmore ignored the problem? With a reserve twice the size of what the perceived shortfall was?

Now the Post is now willing to credit Gilmore with the reserve, which was "statutorily required." Indeed it was, but that doesn't make the money go away, nor doe the funds magically become useless against a shortfall half the reserve's size - no matter how hard the editors assert otherwise:

And the reserves, for which Mr. Gilmore bears no responsibility -- they were
statutorily required -- did nothing to forestall the state's fiscal crisis.

Really? If the reserve "did nothing to forestall the state's fiscal crisis," why did Warner bleed it dry during his four years as Governor?

Then comes the supposed coup de grace, which to me looks like a serious potential for blowback:

It fell to Mr. Warner, who succeeded Mr. Gilmore as governor, to fix what
quickly mushroomed to a nearly $4 billion problem.

Wait a minute. What was that number? $4 billion, you say? I thought it was $6 billion! If the situation was actually $2 billion better than Warner claims, why did he need $1.6 billion in new taxes? While the Post aimed at Gilmore with this editorial, this sentence actually hits and destroys Warner's record. Whoopsie!

As for the rest of Gilmore's record, the Post continued getting things wrong:

Mr. Gilmore's term was marked not only by bad management but also by a
stiff-necked, belligerent political style that left him with few allies. In
Richmond, he shunned Democrats, disdained doubting Republicans and listened
mainly to a closed cabal of hard-line aides.

Gilmore "shunned Democrats"? That would come as a surprise to Charles Waddell, the longtime Democratic State Senator that Gilmore appointed to the Cabinet, or David Brickley, a Prince William Democratic Delegate who also found a job in the Gilmore Administration.

Moreover, there is one piece of Gilmore's record the Post completely missed: the food tax cut. In 1999, the Democrats proposed a two-point reduction in the sales tax on food. Many Democrats were genuinely concerned for less fortunate Virginians; more than a few were hoping to corner Gilmore into opposing a tax cut. Gilmore embraced the food-tax cut and enacted it on the first opportunity, shocking official Richmond and making him a bipartisan hero.

Oh, and as for the "toxic relationship with his opposite number in Maryland, then-Gov. Parris N. Glendening, a Democrat," the Post should know that Gilmore was hardly alone. Governor Glendening was one of the most loathed politicians in Maryland history - in fact, as I recall, even the Post found many reasons to rip him to shreds.

One final note, the editors promise to "review Mr. Warner's record as governor at a later date." Perhaps they will notice that Warner's last budget included an increase of $10.5 billion - $9 billion before the 2004 tax increase. If we're really luck, the editors will think to ask Warner: Where did the $9 billion go?

Cross-posted to the right-wing liberal