This year’s deadlock is different
Thursday, April 6th, 2006
I've been saying it for weeks: this year's budget deadlock is different from 2004. Garren Shipley has a nice article about just that subject. It's a good read.
Archive for the ‘Tax debate’ Category
Broken vows
Tuesday, April 4th, 2006
Bart Hinkle:
Instead, Kaine now is proposing yet more tax hikes. He promises the money will be used exclusively for transportation. But then, before winning office he promised he would not raise the subject, let alone taxes, until the legislature had secured transportation funds in an inviolable lockbox. Back then, he also was saying things such [...]
BREAKING ….
Saturday, April 1st, 2006
Governor Tim Kaine announced last night that the budget crisis has been ended by the sale of the Commonwealth of Virginia to ExxonMobil. "Virginia pioneered the sale of state assets with our CGI and Northrop Grumman deals," Kaine said. "This is the logical next step and it has the happy virtue of ending [...]
Howell blasts Kaine tactics
Saturday, March 25th, 2006
Nice to see the GOP pushing back, for once:
House Speaker Bill Howell accused Gov. Tim Kaine yesterday of waging a "deliberate campaign of misinformation" against the House budget.
Kaine has been running automated phone calls into targeted House Republicans' districts--as well as radio ads statewide--urging voters to support his and the Senate's budget and transportation proposals.
Howell, [...]
Must Be Counter-Intuitive
Thursday, March 23rd, 2006
I see that Governor Kaine is touting Virginia's rating from an independent study as the second most business-friendly state in the nation.
You'd think he'd decline the award, what with the crippling "transportation crisis" and businesses allegedly deserting the state en masse because of it.
The rating organization uses 29 factors to rate states, including taxes [...]
This am Bizarro World
Sunday, March 19th, 2006
The Commonwealth of Virginia is expected to end this fiscal year with a $1.4 billion surplus. That's $1.4 BILLION.
Yet Tim Kaine and Sen. Chichester want to raise our taxes. What kind of a bizarro world are we living in?
Scenario 2
Tuesday, March 14th, 2006
GOP Hokie has posted his second scenario for this year's special session of the General Assembly. (Here's scenario 1).
Meanwhile, Norm is speculating as to why the budget stalemate might be different this time around:
But the larger point, that this debate lacks the fire of the 2004 tax fight, is true. Roads do not stir [...]
Scenario time
Monday, March 13th, 2006
Now that we're staring overtime in the face, GOP Hokie has begun examining different scenarios for how this whole thing will play out. Here's his first installment. It's good reading.
I'm no prognosticator (see my predictions on last year's gubernatorial race for evidence of that), but I can report that I continue to be [...]
We’re headed to a special session
Friday, March 10th, 2006
Looks like a special session of the General Assembly is an inevitability. So says the NV Daily's Garren Shipley:
At the conclusion of some very interesting comments, Sen. Thomas K. Norment, R-Williamsburg, the floor leader, told members to start thinking about when they'd like to come back to Richmond.
"My other forecast is that we will [...]
Lunch Money
Thursday, March 9th, 2006
Those who voted against a dedicated source of funding for Metro are feeling a bit of vindication.
Salt Lick, We Miss Ya
Thursday, March 9th, 2006
I haven't picked on the Roanoke Times lately. Their editorial today on the LeBlanc vote is laughable: In rejecting the appointment of former Virginia AFL-CIO head Daniel LeBlanc on spurious grounds, House Republicans insulted all Virginians who care more about progress than politics. There are plenty of reasons to criticize this vote, [...]
“Diminished Credibilityâ€
Thursday, March 9th, 2006
Jim Bacon:
Gov. Tim Kaine may be furious that the House GOP nixed his nomination of Daniel LeBlanc to Secretary of Commonwealth, but he has himself to thank: Having broken two major campaign promises relating to transportation, he doesn't have much credibility when he says that he will protect Virginia's Right to Work law.
Indeed. For [...]
Future Fault Lines?
Wednesday, March 8th, 2006
An alert and astute reader pointed out this Amy Gardner story in the Washington Post today about the frozen car tax reimbursement impact on localities: The cap on car tax relief hits growing, wealthy jurisdictions the hardest because thousands of new, often expensive cars and their owners are moving in by the thousands. Yet [...]
2004 and 2006
Tuesday, March 7th, 2006
J. Sarge and Virginia Centrist are taking a look back at what happened in 2004 that resulted in The Great Tax Hike, and comparing it to this year's General Assembly session. Interesting analyses, and certainly worth reading.
As for 2006, the landscape is a bit different. I can't say what's going to happen in [...]
We Know Where We Are. Where Are We Going?
Monday, March 6th, 2006
Someone with real crediblity in the transportation debate, former VDOT Commissioner Phil Shucet, has an op-ed in today's Richmond Times-Dispatch. He issues a clarion call to taxpayers--support "new, sustainable, dedicated funds for transportation."
Shucet has lots of disturbing statistics. Richmond commuters will lose 16 hours to traffic congestion this year, apparently losing [...]
“We’re going to have to live within our meansâ€
Monday, March 6th, 2006
"I'm not going to be in for tax increases because we did it in 2004, and we're going to have to live within our means."
--Gubernatorial candidate Tim Kaine, on WRVA radio in Richmond, on November 3, 2005 -- five days before Election Day.
UPDATE: Another great Tim Kaine quote.
Blame the Victim
Sunday, March 5th, 2006
Margaret Edds of the Virginian-Pilot thinks the General Assembly will not complete its work by March 11th, largely because of the "philosophical gulf between the pro-investment and anti-tax caucuses." Are there really caucuses with those names?
Of course, this whole mess would be resolved quickly, in favor of "investment," if not for the sloth of [...]
Something Must Be Done
Saturday, March 4th, 2006
Here's more evidence that the "transportation crisis" is crushing the hopes and aspirations of Virginia citizens and businesses: job growth in 2005 of 2.4% statewide, while surpassing the national average, dropped .1% from the 2004 figure of 2.5%.
Surely this is also the long-awaited, frequently predicted end of the surplus, as the dwindling number of [...]
Latest Dispatch from the Water Carrier Army
Wednesday, March 1st, 2006
Jack M. Lewis, president of New River Community College, is the latest water carrier for the Kaine/Senate tax increase strategy. In a Roanoke Times op-ed, he argues for not allowing transportation funding to compete with funding for education. In essence, he is trashing the Republican House approach.
Is funding for community colleges going [...]
VDOT Maintenance Cutback: Why Now?
Tuesday, February 28th, 2006
Jim Bacon asks two good questions about the RT-D story on VDOT's maintenance cutback.
I'm curious about something that doesn't appear in the story. Why was this announced now? Was it a routine press conference, good journalistic digging, or was it a leak?
It seems to me that the timing of this [...]