Dear George,

You asked me to further expand upon what I believe is the purposeful obfuscation going on in Richmond over the state's growing "structural deficit." Several years ago, when I wrote about the "structural deficit" in the Washington Post, even that newspaper's editors were new to the concept. Even now, I find that few people are aware of the situation, as it can be difficult to understand.

The title of my Post article was "Behind Virginia's Budget Woes, a Deficit of Candor." The title was right then. And, sadly, candor requires me to say that Governor Warner and the GOP General Assembly majority, in the last 16 months or so, have only made the title more on-the-money, as much as I would have wanted, as you can see by the article, to render a different verdict.

But as Bob Dylan asked so many years ago in his song that was so strongly supported by a whole new generation in the Southland: "How many times can a man turn his head and pretend that he just doesn't see?"

As a rule, Democrats are more comfortable talking about the social issues -- education, health care, jobs, the needy, the environment -- than fiscal issues. BUT YOU CAN NOT HONESTLY ADDRESS THE FORMER WITHOUT HONESTLY ASSESSING THE LATTER.

I thought this was clear in 2001, spending as much time as I did playing a lead role in writing and rewriting Warner's Action Plan for Virginia, the platform for the campaign.

Sadly, something is happening that I never thought was possible.

Essentially, my analysis of the structural deficit looks past the papered-over claims by the politicians in Richmond about their miraculous "balancing" of the state budget and instead focuses on the real numbers, the real deficit situation in a way those of us who understand public and private finance look at the true situation.

Thus, the "structural deficit" includes all the gimmicks, one-time fixes, accelerated revenue collections that steal from future years to pay current bills, embedded budget time-bombs obligating any new revenue to old political promises, and the "off-the-books" Enron style borrowing/accounting games that the current crowd in Richmond is using in hopes of sweeping the fiscal truth under the under the rug. Why? Because all these robbing "Peter to pay Paul approaches" -- moving the same dollar from one pocket to another and claiming that now you have "two" dollars -- is just smoke and mirrors that makes things look "good" now while setting fiscal land mines around the bend in the road.

We can at least try, as my article says, to be candid and honest. Your children deserve as much, as does my son Thomas, from their state's leaders.

FACT: The state's structural deficit is ballooning and it is threatening an even further bleeding of so many of initiatives put in place by Robb, Baliles and Wilder and championed by those of us who played lead roles in those efforts.

It is one thing to inherit a bad hand. It is quite another to make it worse, or allow it to be made worse, in order to avoid doing the right thing figuring the Republicans will let you slide because this takes them off the hook.

Moreover, I ask you: How does this help Tim Kaine and future Democrats win statewide office?

I ask each of you: How high do you think the state's "multi-billion dollar" structural deficit has grown in the past months?

And when you add it up, I ask Virginia Democrats again:

How does our letting the GOP off-the-hook for their budget recklessness by signing-on to all their gimmicks possibly help Tim Kaine or any statewide Democrat win in 2005?

I would like to think I still have enough of the right stuff to plot the strategy for yet another Democratic Governor.

This requires me to think about the chess moves today, not waiting until 2005 with my fingers crossed.

Democrats cannot afford to blow the fiscal issue, the one we used to win back the Governorship in 2001.

Paul Goldman (electronic mail, May 16, 2003)