Around the Beltway

“There’s a holdup counting votes. “Richmond’s broken out in tax fights.

“There’s a rhetoric jam in Annapolis that’s backed up on gambling rights.

“There’s a recall bringing smiles.

“Government spending running wild.

“S-A-N-I-T-Y, where are you?”

After reading the newspapers the past few days, that takeoff on the theme song for the old TV comedy “Car 54, Where Are You?” has stuck in my mind, but the issues in the takeoff are politically serious, with each having the potential to force taxpayers to spend on frivolity.

Consider the Democratic Party’s D.C. primary. The sole purpose of the election was to lament the fact that the capital does not have full representation in Congress. To accomplish that goal, D.C. taxpayers forked over $350,000 — and we still live with the political reality that D.C. does not have full representation in Congress. Furthermore, there was a problem with tallying the votes that led officials to claim one set of numbers for the turnout on Tuesday night and another on Wednesday. By then, Democrat Eleanor Holmes Norton dubbed the primary a “success” because 16 percent of the people eligible to vote on Tuesday went to the polls — 16 percent. Same old, same old.

Elsewhere, outside the Beltway, two governors are grappling with budget woes. One, Virginia’s spending maven and Democratic governor, Mark Warner, wants to tax his state out of its heartache by proposing $1 billion in tax increases. Of course, the poor in his state, as well as Virginians on fixed incomes, will be hit the hardest. In Mr. Warner’s noggin, the $1 billion in new tax revenues add up to sufficiently cover for his $2.3 billion in new spending. His policies and practices are an odd fit for that commonwealth. Here’s hoping Virginia’s Republicans and its fed-up taxpayers show the rich man a thing or two and emerge victorious.

In Maryland, Gov. Bob Ehrlich is having a really rough go — mostly because the Democrats are being very disingenous and some of the worst partisan politics around. Like his counterparts in many states, Mr. Ehrlich needs to trim spending and increase revenues. When he ran for office in 2002, Mr. Ehrlich made a reasonable revenue proposal: Let’s bring slot machines to Maryland. Well, you would have thought he had suggested seceding to the North. Self-righteous critics thought it sinful to say such a thing. Democrats cried that more gambling money won’t help, and they don’t want budget cuts, either. His fellow Republicans looked to the left, to the right, and started biting their nails. All the while, Marylanders leave home at all hours of the day and night to plunk their coins in slot machines, and the ka-chings from the casinos in West Virginia, Delaware and New Jersey are growing evermore frequent. When you consider the fact that Maryland — not Delaware, not New Jersey and certainly not West Virginia — has a historic tradition in gambling (excuse me, horse racing) — the question becomes, “Why not slots?” The short answer is this: A Republican made the proposal. Oy.

Mr. Warner is not the only chief executive who wants to raise taxes and do it in the name of increased money for education. Indeed, for months, governors have balked that Congress underfunds the Bush administration primary school-reform legislation — the No Child Left Behind Act. President Bush said last week that he is “comfortable” asking Capitol Hill for more education dollars. That makes me uncomfortable, because, while states and the District of Columbia complain, nearly $6 billion in federal-education grant money went unspent by some of the very states that are balking the loudest.

For example, Virginia’s governor said he has to raise taxes in order to boost spending on education and social services. Yet, a report released just last week shows that Virginia failed to spend $170 million in school funds that were allocated by the federal government. Virginia ranked eighth on the Department of Education’s list. Of the other Beltway jurisdictions, Maryland failed to spend $73 million and the District left $30 million unspent.

Some Democrats and Republicans want to argue that that’s OK because the funds were not necessarily allocated for the No Child Left Behind Act. That argument does not wash. And their argument that the recession and slow recovery mean tax increases are inevitable is B-A-L-O-N-E-Y. Conservatives know that lack of money is not the reason American children are suffering in public schools. Mr. Bush knows, too, yet he is beginning to sound more like Teddy Anti-voucher Kennedy than the George W. Bush voters elected in 2000.

2004 is bound to get zanier as the party conventions and elections draw nearer, as Bush Republicans shed their conservatismtolookmorelike Democrats, and as Howard Dean Democrats “remake” themselves to look more and more like the domesticated asses that they are.