The Shadow
RICHMOND (AP) – Not even the longest-serving state legislator in Virginia history – the chairman of the powerful House panel that writes the budget that funds state government – can keep a proposed tax increase alive.
Appropriations Committee chairman Lacey Putney, a conservative independent from Bedford who organizes with the House’s Republican majority, saw his proposal to boost the state retail sales and use tax by a penny go down in flames Wednesday.
The bill was tabled by a Finance subcommittee on a voice vote.
Putney, who began his 51st year in the House of Delegates this month, proposed boosting the tax from 4 percent to 5 percent beginning next Jan. 1.
The Virginia House and Senate are stacked with anti-tax Republicans, and Gov. Bob McDonnell has pledged to veto general tax increases.
