Once upon a time, there was a governor who faced a budget shortfall of more than a billion dollars. He went to the state legislature, hat in hand, seeking revenues to bridge this looming deficit casting a shadow on the kingdom. Through much toil and talk, cajoling and compromise, he successfully pushed through about $1.4 billion worth of tax increases.
It might be stretching it to say joy spread through the land and everyone lived happily ever after, but there was the next-best ending possible, at least for the governor: His approval ratings rose, into the stratosphere.
No, this is not another one of those political fairy tales that Bill Clinton accuses the media of perpetuating. It is a true-life tale but not, sadly, one set not here in Maryland, but in Virginia.
As you might have seen in The Sun this Sunday, a recent poll the newspaper commissioned found intense opposition to the tax hikes enacted during the special legislative session in November, and it has sent Gov. Martin O'Malley's approval ratings tanking toward George Bush levels - he's down to 35 percent, compared with the president's 27 percent. For the first time in the 10 years that The Sun has asked voters to identify their major concern, too-high taxes beat the perennial worry - schools - to top the list.
O'Malley started with the right playbook - he had consulted with the Virginia governor, Mark Warner, whose 2004 tax hikes didn't harm him politically - but didn't manage to follow it to its happy conclusion.
To hear Robert D. Holsworth, a political scientist at Virginia Commonwealth University, describe it, Warner's strategy should be a case study in Raising Taxes, but Surviving Politically 101. Holsworth, whose university extensively polls Virginia voters, said Warner started by "hugely" cutting state spending before seeking tax increases. He sweetened the proposed hikes with some rollbacks (which, actually O'Malley tried to do as well by seeking, but failing, to include a property tax cut in the package). Warner also got Republican legislators on board with the program, and they actually sought even bigger tax hikes than the Democratic governor was proposing.
Sound entirely different to how it all played out in Annapolis this past November? It was, including something that was beyond either governor's control, Holsworth said - the overall economic climate.
"If you tried to raise taxes today in Virginia, I don't know if you could," he said. "There's more uncertainty today. There's a greater sense of economic risk."
