The Washington Post cannot hide its liberal stripes any longer. Today a member of its liberal editorial board writes a liberal screed about Virginia not being liberal enough. It is one of the worst pieces I have ever seen – full of spin and marketing and far short on balanced facts (i.e., the complete picture).

There’s health care, where he wants to establish new rural clinics, boost incentives to state health care officials, and extend tax credits for the purchase of long-term care insurance and to doctors using cutting-edge information technology. (Big bucks.) There’s education, where he would hike teachers’ bonuses, retirement benefits, tax incentives and student loan payments. (Very big bucks.) And there’s transportation, of course, which he says merits a much bigger chunk of Virginia’s budget. (Sky’s-the-limit bucks.) Those are just the headlines on Kilgore’s shopping list; there are also sundry smaller-ticket items, including boosting pay for indigents’ defense lawyers, directing tens of millions of dollars to help clean up the Chesapeake Bay, and using surplus state revenue (as long as it lasts) to build schools and give parents a tax break when they buy computers, software and tutoring for their kids.

This person is all upset because a Republican wants to address health care, education and the environment?? Listen to the snarkyness of his wording and the lie all this must cost extravagent amounts of money. Whose side is he on? Is he trying to make the case liberal policies in these areas are too expensive to support? So the stage is set for the coup de grace

In the face of this spending onslaught, it would be logical to think Kilgore has a plan to ensure that Virginia can pay for it all in the long term. He doesn’t. In fact, Kilgore would cut revenue to the bone. He’d roll back incumbent Gov. Mark Warner’s 2004 tax hike, which generates $700 million a year; phase out the car tax, at a cost to the state of at least $500 million a year; and cap real estate assessment increases at 5 percent, a crowd pleaser in fast-growing parts of the state that would squeeze localities on their main source of school funding.

You mean he is for tax cuts as well. As for Mark Warner, he will be remembered as the politician who lied to raise taxes in the face of enormous surpluses. After 9-11 Northern Virginia was realing economically since the attacks on DC and the highjacking of flights out of Dulles hit the air travel and tourist industries hard. That meant a tough time for a while tax revenue wise. But after it appeared we were coming out of that period, Warner ran around the state crying ‘Wolf” – the state was going to be in the red.

So he pushed through the largest tax hike in the state’s history on these claims. And days after he signed it into law, he fessed up. The state was actually running a huge surplus. That $700 million figure is low – but it is on top of the pre-Warner tax hike surplus. Like a good liberal screed, this one lies about the situation fiscally to scare people. Well, you can only cry ‘Wolf’ so many times before people stop listening to you all together. So, besides shading the facts, what does this liberal Washington Post editor say?

If lawmakers tried to raise taxes on income, sales or gasoline, Kilgore would exercise his veto unless the tax was first approved at a referendum by Virginia voters — a referendum that he would probably oppose.

“I believe that we can lower our taxes and fulfill our promise to fully phase out the car tax and increase funding to education,” Kilgore said in his debate with Kaine. “Raising taxes does not equal leadership.”

So there you have it: a populist free lunch for Virginia.

Sad thing about liberals is, if they cannot figure out how to grow an economy, lower taxes and meet the needs of the people they assume no one can. But he also ‘admits’ that he is lying by parsing words do he can squirm out of being called a liar

The Kilgore camp would have Virginians believe that the state’s surplus, generated partly by Warner’s tax hike, will last and last. But what if the good times suddenly stop rolling?

There it is. This liberal has to admit the surpluses are huge and go beyond the Warner tax hike. In black and white. His only excuse for the charade is the fact something might have the chanced of possibly, maybe occuring that could, if conditions were right, cause a potential impact on state revenues.

I would fisk this in detail, but what’s the point? The person writing it has declared the problem too hard for him to solve and he shows he is trying to mislead his readers. I take his word for it.