A Conservative Fiscal Proposal
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130 responses to “A Conservative Fiscal Proposal”
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Families don’t have debts to retire? I didn’t look at the report, but I suspect it shows Virginia is not in excess of its (consevative) debt capacity. The point here is tax revenue will still grow even after some modest rate reductions. Christmas is behind us, Scrooge. Go home. 🙂
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Somehow paying down debt and fiscal responsibility will be determined to be RACIST and Transphobic.
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In my youth, which because of arrested development lasted well into my fifties before cynicism finally took over, I had always considered conservatism with not acting rashly. I always pictured the wisdom of conservatism as Jimmie Stewart saying, “Now-now wait just a darn minute, Farley.” That went the way of the Dodo when I had the great fortune to hear Grover Norquist speak on taxes and heard that ALL Republicans had signed his pledge. That’s when I realized that they are like rabid dogs on taxes. Not spending, mind you. Just taxes.
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And I’ve grown cynical watching leftists adopt every tax scheme they could devise to “to take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned” to buy votes. California, a free state since it was part of Mexico and loyal to the Union, is about to pay racial reparations. Makes my point perfectly. Tax and spend and vote for more!
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And I’ve grown cynical watching leftists adopt every tax scheme they could devise to “to take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned” to buy votes. California, a free state since it was part of Mexico and loyal to the Union, is about to pay racial reparations. Makes my point perfectly. Tax and spend and vote for more!
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The justification for dumb tax policy in Virginia is to distract the discussion by pointing to California?
that’s SO…. “conservative”!
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California is a better place to live by far. Hawaii is expensive too. One maxim that continues to survive the test of time, “You get what you pay for.”
Personally, I like my potholes in Pittsburg.
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Beats spend & borrow. That’s mortgaging the future. Republicans may have reduced taxes but not one red cent of debt, nor debt rate.
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Others have grown cynical reading comments that state corporate taxes are assessed twice – once upon the corp and then upon the salaries of employees. Of course, the corp deducts the salaries, then may owe taxes on the profit. Blessed be Mitt Romney.
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getting straight and honest answers from Conservatives on these issues is like pulling hens teeth!
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There are many examples of unfair taxation by those who actually pay taxes.
Here’s another example – capital gains taxes.
To be fair, the calculation for gains should be indexed for inflation. For example, if my investment gains 15% over two years, but inflation over that period of time was 14 %, then my actual gain was only 1%.
Today, however, the gain doesn’t account for inflation and I would pay capital gains on the entire 15% in my example above.
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There is indeed double taxation, but it’s on dividends, not salaries.
“The double taxation of dividends is a reference to how corporate earnings and dividends are taxed by the U.S. government.
Corporations pay taxes on their earnings and then pay shareholders dividends out of the after-tax earnings.
Shareholders receiving dividend payments from a company must then pay taxes on that income as part of their personal income taxes.
Because of this requirement, some corporations opt to avoid paying dividends to shareholders and instead reinvest the money internally.”
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If it’s “qualified dividends”, the tax rate is different and can be zero, right?
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Only if the person is low income and doesn’t pay tax. Very few in that bracket get significant dividends from stocks.
“These dividends are taxable federally at the capital gains rate, which depends on the investor’s modified adjusted gross income (AGI) and taxable income (the rates are 0%, 15%, and 20%). Higher earners are also impacted by the 3.8% net investment income tax (NIIT) outlined in the Affordable Care Act. So many actually pay an effective rate of 18.8% (15%+3.8% for the NIIT) or 23.8% (20%+3.8%) on long-term capital gains and dividends.”
But the point is that same dollar is taxed twice. The corporation pays tax on it, as does the shareholder. That makes no sense.
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so if someone pays income tax on what they earn and then they pay tax on it again when they spend it for groceries and gas, taxed again also?
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No. Sales tax is an entirely different thing and everyone pays income tax then sales tax if they buy something taxable. That’s not considered double taxation.
Read my original post again. It explains how the corporation and shareholder both pay tax on the same profit.
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I saw it. What is the concept of “qualified dividends”?
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For all it’s faults and it does have them, California is still the 8th biggest economy in the world AND moving UP:
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Imagine is half the population in Virginia was on food stamps.. https://usdebtclock.org/state-debt-clocks/state-of-california-debt-clock.html
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According to that site..
VA Pop: 8,845,907
VA FSR: 737,963From those numbers, 8.34% of Virginia’s population is on food stamps.
For California..
CA Pop: 39,596,397
CA FSR: 4,105,696From those numbers, 10.37% of California’s population is on food stamps.
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and 40+% of kids born are paid for by Medicaid. Right?
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The figure for Virginia is 32%, hardly anything to be proud of.
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I agree. But it’s the reality. 1/3 of kids in the public schools were paid for by taxpayers and likely are still getting their healthcare from Medicaid.
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“Imagine if ONLY half of the population…”
Fixed.
I wonder how much of the tax burden is local taxes (real estate, personal property) rather than state.
Personal income tax rates need to be adjusted for inflation in the half century since they were set. The standard deduction should be increased so exemptions plus standard deduction are closer to the federal standard deduction, or people who take the standard deduction for federal taxes should be allowed to itemize deductions on their state return.
Using some of the surplus for capital projects is a good idea. I believe that Virginia used to fund most capital projects from General funds until the 2008 recession when capital projects were converted to bond funds. I (mis)managed construction projects for a state agency before I retired, and projects were often delayed for several months because the state was close to it’s bond funding percentage limit, and new projects couldn’t be funded until previous bond funds were repaid. (I was never privy to what was going on at DPB, so this might not be completely accurate, but it’s how it appeared to an outsider)
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The local element is huge, especially in Northern VA (but no longer just there.)
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The property taxes on my old townhouse in Manassas Park were approaching $5K a year last time I checked.
$5K a year. For an 1180 sq foot townhouse. In Manassas Park.
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And if you had a kid in school, it would not cover that cost, much less the other non-school costs. Every house like that needs another taxpayer or two to help make up that deficit.
right?
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Part of Manassas Park’s problem (but by no means the only one) is that they are heavily residential. It’s been called a subdivision that became a city.
The lack of commercial properties in the city contributes to the high property taxes.
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How about when people leave and move south to Spotsylvania and leave behind others who have to pay higher taxes to make up for that? Or is that not really an issue?
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It’s not an issue because for every person that leaves Manassas Park, there’s another one moving in to take their place.
EDIT: When city data had that info on their Manassas Park page, the average length of time that someone lived in Manassas Park was only 6 years. It’s a pretty transient city.
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Kids are in school for 12 years, taxes on the house go on forever.
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THey do…. to pay for the schools, right?
so if you tally up the total public school cost for a kid for K-12, how long would it take a “house” to pay the taxes necessary to fund that cost?
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I agree. We pay far too much for public education. And we get far too little in return.
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so let folks pay to educate their own kids and let others pay less taxes on their homes!
The parents that can’t pay, just let their kids roam the streets, etc.
Everyone else can used their saved tax money to build fences and walls and hire private guards?
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That’s the only alternative you can conceive of? That explains a lot of your posts on BR.
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did you see the “?”
surely you don’t favor taxing folks, taking their money and giving it to others to spend as individuals, right?
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That’s the only alternative you can conceive of, right?
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nope.
but I’m asking you what you think also.I have definite thoughts but am asking you the question also.
got ideas?
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Oh, I thought you were offering a straw man argument.
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nope.
But I AM asking what is the fundamental purpose of “public education”?
what justfies taking money from people for the purpose of education and how do we assure the money is actually spent for specific purposes.
How do we NOT just give money away without knowing if it actually did produce something of value?
How would we know if we did not have similar requirements and standards for tax money spent “alternatives”?
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Noting that the case for a tax rate reduction is still a strong one and that the devil is in the details.
purpose: To produce adults who can function as responsible citizens in a free society.
justification: A free society cannnot stay free if without a well educated citizenry.
We know that the educational system is broken. For decades we have given it more and more $ per student, at a pace greater than inflation, and the results continue to decline.
The educational system is rewarded for failure. Failure leads to larger budgets and greater salaries, but never to greater accountability. The educational experts pontificate, but they don’t educate; continuing to reward them will only lead to more of the same.
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“public education” IS successful and if the fundamental difference between developed countries and undeveloped countries – around the world.
Period.
It is a long way from perfect by any stretch of the imagination but a failure it is not.
This country has the highest GDP per capita in the world which is directly attributable to public education.
That justifies taxation and when we do that we require that every kid be educated not just certain ones and we requires that every student be tested and that the results are provided to the public for accountability.
We do not snf will not tax people and give the money to someone else to spend as they see fit for a non-public education.
I am fine with vouchers as long as they have to meet the same exact standards as public schools do.
That means they have to take every kid no matter their economic circumstance and they have to produce the results of their performance the same way that public schools do.
But what we don’t and won’t do is tax people to give that money to someone else to pay for a private school that does not have to accept every kid and does not have to report results, not held accountable to the same standards that we hold public education.
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“public education” IS successful and if the fundamental difference between developed countries and undeveloped countries – around the world.
Period.
It is a long way from perfect by any stretch of the imagination but a failure it is not.
This country has the highest GDP per capita in the world which is directly attributable to public education.
That justifies taxation and when we do that we require that every kid be educated not just certain ones and we requires that every student be tested and that the results are provided to the public for accountability.
We do not snf will not tax people and give the money to someone else to spend as they see fit for a non-public education.
I am fine with vouchers as long as they have to meet the same exact standards as public schools do.
That means they have to take every kid no matter their economic circumstance and they have to produce the results of their performance the same way that public schools do.
But what we don’t and won’t do is tax people to give that money to someone else to pay for a private school that does not have to accept every kid and does not have to report results, not held accountable to the same standards that we hold public education.
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Well, in the case of Manassas Park, maybe if they’d used the tax money to increase teacher salaries to be competitive with the rest of Northern Virginia instead of building Taj Mahals, there would have been a better outcome.
It would be interesting to see what are the ratios between staff and line employees in both Manassas Park city and school operations from the time when you owned your townhouse in MP and today. I define “line” employees to mean those directly and primarily involved in the delivery of services to the public. Everyone else is staff.
re: ” Using some of the surplus for capital projects is a good idea. ”
I agree. In good “revenue” times, the state ought to:
1. make their rainy day fund “whole”
2. address things that have not been adequately funded in past budgets
3. capital projects
THEN consider tax rebates – which by the way Northam had proposed also but not to the extent that Conservatives wanted.
I continue to think the GIlmore car tax is an rube-Guldberg abomination …
It not only interferes with local tax and election/accountability issues, it puts a spending burden on the state to boot.
It ends up, essentially collecting taxes from folks then “giving” it back to the locality instead of letting the locality do the tax in the first place.
“Personal income tax rates need to be adjusted for inflation in the half century since they were set.”
Some people don’t like change.
Virginia was using bonds to fund capital projects for many years prior to 2008. There were a few years in whivh GF cash was used, but there would soon be years in which additional gf was needed and the GA would authorize bonds to supplant the GF balances in capital projects. 2008 was one of those years.
There were times after 2008 when only a limited number of projects could be funded because there was not enough debt capacity. In effect, that meant outstanding debt had to be reduced and revenues had to improve.
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The debt ratio among other metrics affects the bond ratings of the State as well as the local jurisdictions.
Virginia is one of about a dozen states that continues to maintain a AAA bond rating which is considered to be the gold standard for responsible fiscal policy.
The are counties and cities in Virginia that also maintain a AAA bond rating including Richmond City which gets clobbered in BR all the time on a variety of issues:
Families don’t have debts to retire? Business should borrow more so the government can pay cash? I didn’t look at the report, but I suspect it shows Virginia is not in excess of its (conservative) debt capacity. The point here is tax revenue will still grow even after some modest rate reductions. Christmas is behind us, Scrooge. Go home. 🙂
If I thought the interest money you claim you wish to save would also go back to taxpayers the argument would have more credibility. But it won’t under your team. You’ll spend it.
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As you pointed out in your summary of the tax proposal, a family can expect to pay about $100-120 less in taxes. Not much debt retirement there.
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The rate cut plus the higher standard deduction add up to more than that, and many people have Schedule C or partnership income so would benefit from the qualified business income subtraction, too. Combined it’s real tax relief.
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Some years back, the state borrowed money from the retirement system. Has that been paid back? If not, that would be my first use for any excess funds.
I am not suggesting that just because I am a retired state employee. It makes sense to put money into the system during a downturn in the market.
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I am pretty sure it has been paid back. In fact, one of the proposals in Northam’s lat budget was an extra deposit to VRS.
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Thanks. I looked but couldn’t find confirmation.
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Is this it?
“Gov. Ralph Northam is proposing a new way to help local school divisions in Virginia by using $100 million in state cash to reduce retirement and health care liabilities for teachers.
In the revised budget he will present to General Assembly money committees on Wednesday, Northam will propose to pay off a $61.3 million debt that the state incurred 10 years ago when it deferred contributions to the teacher pension plan to help balance the state budget after the Great Recession.
The governor also will use $38.7 million in one-time money to pay down unfunded liabilities for teacher and state employee retirement health credits and other post-employment benefits.
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That’s it.
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Thanks, Larry. Also, Northam included a $250 million deposit to VRS in the current budget from surplus revenues.
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Well, the credit goes to Bob McDonnell. Although I do applaud Northam’s work to strengthen VRS.
“We helped secure your retirement by making the largest deposit into our pension system in history: $2.2 billion in 2012. We also fixed the untenable cash position of VRS with major reforms to reduce future unfunded liabilities by $9 billion over 25 years. I have included $315 million in the budget to fully fund the payback of previous deferrals, and the graduated implementation of the new 7% rate of return.”
https://www.governing.com/archive/gov-virginia-bob-mcdonnell-state-address.html
https://www.baconsrebellion.com/in-defense-of-mcdonnells-vrs-reforms/
https://bluevirginia.us/2011/12/va-dems-blast-mcdonnells-vrs-plan-as-unfunded-mandate-forcing-cuts-to-kids-seniors-healthcare
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so how bad is Virginia on taxes (in addition to paying it’s debts AND insuring that we DO really have additional revenue to rebate not only this year but forecast years? :
https://taxfoundation.org/publications/state-local-tax-burden-rankings/
Now some “conservatives” think ANY tax is wrong and we kinda know who they are when that’s the way they argue about “giving it back”.
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43rd highest out of 50 states.
Is that something to be proud of? California is #46.
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one of the problems is the refusal to deal with truth!
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Did they take into account the personal property tax rate?
EDIT: No, they did not.
I saw one (from Kiplinger) that didn’t.
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But we’re talking about the State of Virginia and it’s income taxes, right?
Isn’t that what Youngkin is talking about in justifying rebates?
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No, I think the topic of the conversation has shifted to your obvious lack of reading comprehension.
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“Governor Youngkin has proposed tax reductions that would reduce state revenue by about $1 billion in this biennium.”
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You claimed that Virginia is a low-tax state.
You then posted a link to an article that shows that Virginia is in the top 10 of states with the highest local/state tax burden, presumably because you didn’t figure out what it was saying in the 3 seconds of time you actually spent looking at it.
Am I right?
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I did… my bad….
You are correct.
I did misread the table but that table is not consistent with other tables on the web that show different numbers based purely on Virginia State tax and not including the local tax burden.
The top 10 highest income tax states (or legal jurisdictions) for 2021 are:
California 13.3%
Hawaii 11%
New Jersey 10.75%
Oregon 9.9%
Minnesota 9.85%
District of Columbia 8.95%
New York 8.82%
Vermont 8.75%
Iowa 8.53%
Wisconsin 7.65%https://turbotax.intuit.com/tax-tips/fun-facts/states-with-the-highest-and-lowest-taxes/L6HPAVqSF
So, Virginia is NOT one of the lowest but it’s also not one of the highests.
correct?
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Well, see, that table you’re looking at now is only comparing income taxes.
The one you looked at before is comparing ALL taxes, state and local.
For the purposes of knowing what you’re going to be paying in taxes for a state you’re considering moving to, you probably want to take into account ALL the taxes, not just income taxes.
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for the purposes of THIS discussion about whether Virginia State taxes are “too high” and thus rebates are justified… according to Youngkin, compare Virginia to other states taxing of income.
We are not a high tax state with regard to State Income Taxes.
If there is a discussion about “too high taxes” then it might point to local taxes more appropriately which would not be a Youngkin tax policy thing
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“We are not a high tax state with regard to State Income Taxes.”
Yes, but we sure make up for it with other taxes, don’t we?
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We do but the idea that the State is taxing too much is not correct.
Agree?
We’re possibly on the verge of doing a Kansas type “mistake” that will come to us in future years irrespective of the local tax burden issue…
It’s happened before.
The basic premise with Youngkin and like-minded Conservatives is that Virginia taxes are TOO HIGH but they’re simply not when compared to other states tax rates and revenues.
Even when you add in the local taxes, we’re still not in the same league with California/New York…
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“Even when you add in the local taxes, we’re still not in the same league with California/New York…”
Not yet, anyway!
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and if you compare us to the States that have no income tax….
or worse, states that have no income tax and no sales taxes….
For me, the issue is more than just taxes, it’s govt spending.
Is Virginia a frugal state when it comes to spending?
Does it need to cut spending and on what?
What are we spending too much on or inefficiently compared to other states?
That ought to be part of any discussion about taxes and cuts IMO.
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for the purposes of THIS discussion about whether Virginia State taxes are “too high” and thus rebates are justified… according to Youngkin, compare Virginia to other states taxing of income.
We are not a high tax state with regard to State Income Taxes.
If there is a discussion about “too high taxes” then it might point to local taxes more appropriately which would not be a Youngkin tax policy thing
You claimed that Virginia is a low-tax state.
You then posted a link to an article that shows that Virginia is in the top 10 of states with the highest local/state tax burden, presumably because you didn’t figure out what it was saying in the 3 seconds of time you actually spent looking at it.
Am I right?
From that first link you posted:
The states with the highest state-local tax burdens in calendar year 2022 were:
1. New York (15.9 percent)
2. Connecticut (15.4 percent)
3. Hawaii (14.1 percent)
4. Vermont (13.6 percent)
5. California (13.5 percent)
6. New Jersey (13.2 percent)
7. Illinois (12.9 percent)
8. Virginia (12.5 percent)
9. Delaware (12.4 percent)
10. Maine (12.4 percent)
Did you not read that thing all the way through and assumed that the #1 ranking was the highest-tax state????
For retired folk in Virginia, I don’t believe they tax social security AND they don’t tax the first 12K of pension income per person so a married couple is 24K.
I strongly suspect that many retired people in Virginia pay MORE in local real estate and personal property tax than State tax unless the county also cuts them a break on their age or income or veteran status.
Virginia is a legitimate LOW tax state and it’s generally frugal and careful in it’s spending and the problem with cutting taxes is the uncertainty in the economic forecasts which are not very stable right now.
But all this “extra” revenue really contradicts the standard conservative narrative not only with respect to Va actually being one of the lower taxed states but about it’s economy which conservatives also routinely claim to be weak and anemic…and then hurt “bad” by Northam but in spite of all this horrible stuff, we STILL have “massive surpluses”.
Who to believe? Well, not Conservatives when it comes to taxes – they know no bounds… any tax is “too much” , any tax revenue suspect as unwarranted and taking from people what is “theirs”.
Gloom and doom predicted from the tax&spend liberals but at the end of the day, Virginia experiences “shortfalls” in the years after conservatives do tax cuts. Truth!
I always love the Dems “helping” conservatives with budget advice. It is always “pay down the debt.”
But when they are in power, it is SPEND SPEND SPEND like drunken sailors, except drunken sailors spend their own money!
I have a better idea. Cut the programs. Cut the bloat. Cut the tax rates. Raise the income level for the top rate. Cut cut cut. Then force the Dems to make choices…
In general, I choose more freedom for individuals, which means less government. And based on Covidiocy and K-12 and on and on, you think more government is good?
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Youngkin has not proposed cuts. Under Kaine and McAullife there were budget cuts.
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RIght. Youngkin is claiming that all the tax cuts are over and above what is needed to fund the budget. right?
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I don’t know and I don’t care. I want the “budget” cut. Period. Full of waste and worthless programs that don’t provide anywhere near the value.
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I don’t think he’s proposing cuts….
In fact, he’s proposing more spending… -
Proving why I am lukewarm on Youngkin…
See how easy it is to be honest and not a partisan hack? -
hey how about this? Spend more money on it?
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Time to low your head up. Why is there an increase in depression amidst unprecedented wealth?
Why the family breakdown? Why the crimes and drugs?
Liberal policies.
What is the answer?
Jesus.
Return to Judeo-Christian morality. It worked. All the “improvements” have made it worse. The kids are indoctrinated into there is no truth. Which is a contradiction itself. No wonder they feel disaffected and unhappy. -
so, is that a no?
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And you think I am a Youngkin cheerleader?
He is better than Terry McAwful. That’s all it took.
He did come out of the PE world. And he is likely better than the vast majority of PE types, but still…
And were the budget cuts under Kaine and McAwful due to Republican control?
Were there budget cuts under Northam?
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The budget cuts under both Kaine and McAuliffe were proposed by them in response to revenue shortfalls.
OK. You want the budget cut. Fair enough. What would you propose
cutting and by how much?-
I haven’t studied the budget. Prior to TDS and Covidiocy, I thought the Fed budget could probably be cut 25 to 33%. Then I started looking into UVA. Academia and the Fed Govt is a huge money laundering operation. The Twitter files just proved all my suspicions. My interactions with the Virginia Govt over COVID make me confident much could be cut
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People who call for “cutting the budget” without knowing enough about the budget to even suggest specific programs or areas that should be cut have no credibility. For example, a large factor in recent budget increases has been an increase in the pay of state employees. Included in those actions were larger increases for law enforcement and correctional officers. Or, to take another example, the largest increase Youngkin proposed was for economic
development. He also proposed increases for mental health crisis services. Would you like to see cuts in any of those areas? -
All of the above
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IOW – Govt is the enemy?
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What does your beloved government do well, besides censorship and spying on citizens?
Hey, I was right about Covid and the EUA and the “misinformation” wasn’t I? How did a history major do that? -
well, if it was run by Trump?
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Answer my question. What does government do well besides spy on citizens and censor?
Did Trump “run” the executive agencies? Obviously not. That should be a problem for people who supposedly want to “save our democracy.” What they really meant was/is save our oligarchy/kleptocracy. -
GPS Satellites? NOAA , NTSB, FAA, to name a few.
NOw answer mine!
better with Trump?
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I am not convinced by your examples.
The government would be better with Trump if he was actually allowed to re-organize it. He was proposing making it easier to fire employees. That is desperately needed. Workers should not be able to unionize against their ultimate bosses, the people. But Trump’s “government” should be to make it smaller. Smaller is better. -
get rid of the EPA and HHS?
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They can’t be improved?
EPA should be mostly abolished. HHS is responsible for a lot of problems in healthcare, but so is Medicare… -
I thought you wanted to dump most of them not improve them. Not redeemable, right?
or just need a dictator type like Trump to personally fix it?
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As usual, wasting time. No improvement is possible? And I would like to abolish EPA, Ed dept, the 16th and 17th amendments….
The government is too big. It needs to be reduced and less important in our lives. -
Won’t get rid of any unless you have a POTUS who will personally work neuter it then dismantle it.
Congress won’t do it . Has to be by strongman POTUS.
right?
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Larry – do you try to be an idiot?
Trump was not the authoritarian that all you Lefties cried about. Biden is. The FBI/DOJ are his Stasi. And you are OK with it!
It will take a long time to fix. It took a long time of letting you Commies F it up. But truth will eventually win out… -
So Trump was the man? right?
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I am in the process of putting together an article that will address this question. It is too long to go into in a comment, But I will give you the short answer: run prisons. There are also: state parks (Virginia has one of the best parks systems in the country), forensic analysis, medical schools, higher ed in general, law enforcement, health inspections, to name a few
Some merit, but every single one, to the extent it is needed, can be run better. Med schools going woke? CRT/DEi/SEL as “education?” Who takes advantage of the state parks? Seems it is mostly the wealthy. How about the Open Conservancy Fund? Seems to benefit the gentry. Plenty of fat everywhere, besides whole divisions to get rid of.
So you do not think State troopers and sheriffs’ deputies should get raises?
I would more eliminate many positions in the bureaucracies. The VDH pretty much proved itself worthless, except for repeating what the CDC said. I am against the economic development bribery schemes. I would prefer that we have the best business climate and “win” that way. The education department? You know what I think!
So you don’t think State troopers sheriffs’ deputies deserve a raise?
These two men pictured would have combined Mr. Dick’s plan with Youngkin’s plan.
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/4210d9bf2b232a17c2c3c2e9dcd986486af8908c0d3849846c57e0f3c007ad59.jpg
The fact that Conservatives support paying for tax cuts for the rich by piling it on the national debt for some future generation to pay is all you need to know about their lack of fiscal responsibility. This is just another example.
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Troll – you are an idiot. The rich pay the taxes. You can’t steal enough money to make things work by taking all of the “rich” money. You want equity? Cut taxes and government.
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The rich pay significantly less taxes since Conservatives held a trifecta and passed the Trump tax cut for the rich… paying for it not through spending reductions but through increases to the deficit. That is the Conservative standard now…
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Only fair that Conservatives have to pay back the tax cuts that were “paid for” through debt.
You’re right.
They talk this fiscal conservative S_it out the wazoo but look at what they actually do.
What a bunch of hypocrites!
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Only fair that Conservatives have to pay back the tax cuts that were “paid for” through debt.
You’re right.
They talk this fiscal conservative S_it out the wazoo but look at what they actually do.
What a bunch of hypocrites!
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Never ceases to amaze me how intent Democrats are on fiscal discipline when they are out of power. Apparently they feel they are entitled to spend money, and the rest of us should save money until the next time Democrats are in power.
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It never ceases to amaze me how Republicans complain about Democrats spending so much, yet deficits and spending increase when Republicans are in power.
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And Virginia continues to maintain a AAA bond rating for quite some time under Dems….
Youngkins “proposal” is going to run into some hard looks in the GA from both Dems and GOP.
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Or give the money to localities for the same purpose–paying off debt and/or funding planned capital projects. Would the long term savings be greater that way? The economic impact?
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I kind of like that idea but needs some significant strings or else some yahoos would not be prudent with it.
Perhaps “give” to localities but force taxpayer referenda as to where spent.
Don’t let it be used to supplant operational costs – just capital projects and prioritize water supply, wastewater, schools, transportation, etc.
Not near as sexy politic but a prudent use of such funds IMO.
GOod idea!
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We already do a lot of that.
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In what ways?
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I know of one city that was using water and sewer tap fees to purchase gallons of water and sewage treatment, instead of using those tap fees for capital costs as I suspect they were intended.
And when I say “gallons of sewage treatment” I do not mean they purchased capacity in a sewage treatment plant. I mean they used those fees to lower the water and sewer bills for their customers.
An example of yahoos not being prudent.
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that is not uncommon. Spotsy was doing it for awhile, mingling the tap fees with the monthly fees instead of dealing with them on a separate basis.
local govt is basically local citizens and unless they have professional staff help AND listen to it, they’ll do stupid things that a lot of ordinary citizens who are financially unsophisticated will also do.
The counties that strive to attain and keep AAA bond ratings typically take more seriously fiscal planning and responsibility IMO.
Major capital projects take serious fiscal planning and some counties need the state to ride herd.
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Same city..one of the public works employees asked the new public works director, “How come the old public works director never asked us to look for water leaks before?”
I don’t know how he answered, but I might have said, “Probably because she’s incompetent”.
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I know. We expect “professional” performance but the reality is that such performance is not necessarily a given especially in local govt and more so in small local govt.
For wastewater, the state (and the EPA) has to ride herd for most of them.
They simply will not do what is required unless they are forced to.
That’s why we still have CSOs not fixed in most cities.
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