Taxes, transportation topics at Kaine roundtable in Manassas

Taxation, transportation, the budget, a balanced budget amendment and debates were the subjects that came up at a business roundtable discussion with Tim Kaine at the City Square Cafe in Manassas on  Wednesday.

Kaine, a Democrat and former governor of Virginia, is running for the U.S. Senate to replace Sen. Jim Webb, who will leave the Senate at the end of his first term.

Kaine’s main opponent is expected to be former Sen. George Allen.

Kaine told about 40 people  at the restaurant on Battle Street that President Ronald Reagan’s 1986 tax reforms fundamentally changed the tax code and made things simpler, but over the years the tax code has become increasingly complicated.

“It’s been 26 years since then and what’s happened is is that everybody has come and said ‘Well I just want this one little piece adjusted,’ and they lobbied and got the adjustments and that’s all legal, but it’s like barnacles growing on the hull of a ship. It’s very complicated,” Kaine said. “We have to go back and make it simpler again.”

Kaine said the government had to deal with the inequities in tax law that have developed over the years.

Kaine said he recognized that transportation is a problem in Northern Virginia and said there are perhaps some things that can be done at the national level to ease the worries locally.

He said that the feds have done “patch job, after patch job, after patch job” and that’s not the way to go.

“We need to find a better path. We need to go in and have a discussion about the infrastructure needs of the country and then have that painful discussion about how we’re going to finance it,” he said. “We can do a lot with public-private partnerships, but public-private partnerships require public money.”

On the budget Kaine said cutting across-the-board wasn’t the answer

“There are some things we should probably eliminate. There are some things we should cut a lot. Other things we should cut a little, but there are some things where we probably are not spending enough money,” he said. “I wouldn’t just cut. I don’t think we can do it mathematically. If we just do it through cuts, we’ll hurt the national economy. We would definitely hurt Virginia’s economy where we have defense spending.”

Kaine said he would seek one dollar of revenue for every two to three dollars he cut.

He said he would find the revenues by eliminating subsidies to oil and gas companies, which he called “mature industries” that don’t need subsidies.

He would also let recent tax cuts expire on people making more than $500,000.

“We’ve got to decide what we’re going to do about the Bush tax cuts. They were put into place temporarily. They were made temporary for a reason. If you make them permanent, you’ll screw up the deficit,” he said.

Kaine said he could vote for a balanced budget amendment, but said the problem with balancing the budget remains with the Congress.

“Remember we had balanced budgets 10 or 11 years ago years ago. The problem isn’t the Constitution. The problem is having the backbone to make tough decisions,” he said.

When asked if he would debate the Republican nominee in Prince William County, Kaine said he was up for debates anywhere.

“I want to do a whole lot of debates, and I’m happy to do one here,” he said.

Though he was not present at the discussion, Del. L. Scot Lingamfelter, R-31st, released a statement about Kaine’s roundtable discussion.

“The people of Virginia are suffering under the failed policies that Tim Kaine championed when he was Barrack Obama’s chief political spokesman in Washington. And it’s disappointing that he’s reverting to partisan attacks that you’d expect from left-wing talking heads on some cable channel, not someone who wants to represent Virginia.”

Senior reporter Keith Walker can be reached at 703-369-6751.