| Times-Dispatch
Kilgore's anti-tax
stance questioned One of the nation's top tax foes is challenging the anti-tax credentials of Attorney General Jerry W. Kilgore, the likely Republican nominee for governor next year. Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform said Kilgore's decision to support pro-tax Republican lawmakers in the approaching General Assembly elections is "very troubling." "The taxpayers need to hear from Mr. Kilgore whose team he's on the taxpayers or the tax spenders," Norquist said yesterday from his Washington office. "There is no middle ground." Norquist's remarks followed an appeal Wednesday by Kilgore campaign manager Ken Hutcheson that the anti-tax activist stay out of the tax fight that has split the Virginia GOP because it could further divide the party. Norquist, working for the defeat of 34 House and Senate Republicans who voted for higher taxes this year, said Hutcheson is "undermining his candidate by raising questions about whether his candidate is anti-tax or not." Hutcheson could not be reached for comment. Kilgore opposed $1.4 billion in additional sales, cigarette and real estate-closing taxes passed by the GOP-controlled legislature this spring. The increases had been urged by Gov. Mark R. Warner, a Democrat elected on a promise not to raise taxes. Kilgore's anti-tax stance has come under question because he is endorsing for the 2005 and 2007 elections the delegates and senators who backed the tax package. Hutcheson was consultant to several of these legislators in the 2003 primaries. "What was said was too weird for words that [Kilgore] will side with the tax increasers," said Norquist. Norquist, an adviser to the Bush White House, said his organization will remain active in the Virginia tax fight. "I can give helpful advice to the Republican Party," said Norquist. "When the Republican Party maintains its brand like Nike or Coca-Cola as the party that isn't going to raise taxes, it wins." He continued, "When you find a rat head in a bottle of Coca-Cola, it damages the brand and you lose customers. The people who are the rat heads in the Coke bottle are the Republicans who voted with the governor to raise taxes." Democrats, meantime, delight in the GOP dissent and hope it will help them hold the governorship in 2005 behind Lt. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine. "That is very bizarre behavior for a guy who wants to unite his party," Kaine campaign manager Mike Henry said of Kilgore's promise to side with pro-tax incumbents. Kilgore runs the risk of "trying to have it both ways, of flip-flopping," Henry said. Contact Jeff E. Schapiro at (804) 649-6814 or jschapiro@timesdispatch.com |
