Category: Government Finance
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Reward Teacher Heroes, Not Those Who Stayed Home
by James A. Bacon In his state of the Commonwealth speech last night, Governor Ralph Northam made some proposals worth cheering and some that bear closer scrutiny. I’ll get to them in future posts. But one remark in particular stands out as totally wrong-headed — the idea, in the year of COVID-19, of giving every…
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Virginia’s COVID Federal Grants Now At $5.8 Billion
By Steve Haner Having received and mostly spent $3.1 billion in federal COVID-19 “relief” funding already, Virginia’s state and local governments now will have another $2.7 billion in the fourth and latest (but likely not last) federal spending bill tied to the ongoing pandemic and unemployment crisis. The word relief is in apostrophes because Virginia’s state budget,…
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Welcome to the New Year, Same as the Old Year
by James A. Bacon Three hundred and sixty-five days ago, my wife and friends and I tossed confetti, tooted our noisemakers and welcomed in a new year. Twenty twenty, we all agreed, couldn’t possibly be worse than 2019. It didn’t take long to disabuse us of that notion. First came the coronavirus. Then the George…
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Another Major Judicial System Reform
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Perhaps the most surprising item in the Governor’s recently-presented budget bill was the proposal to increase the size of the Virginia Court of Appeals by four judges, from 11 to 15. It is certainly one of the most controversial. The Republicans immediately decried the proposal as “court packing”. As usual, the issue…
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Healthcare Spending Drives Growth in Virginia Budget over Last 10 Years
by James C. Sherlock On December 16, the Director of the Virginia Department of Planning and Budget provided a briefing for the Joint Meeting of the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee, the House Appropriations Committee, and the House Finance Committee. The subject was the Governor’s proposed amendments to the 2020-2022 Biennial Budget. The Governor submitted…
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Northam Would Save Most of Virginia’s New Cash
By Steve Haner Other states are in trouble these days, but Virginia suddenly has about $1.5 billion in free cash flow to use over the next 18 months, Governor Ralph Northam announced Wednesday. About half of it ($750 million) will be placed into reserves or used to improve the financial health of the Virginia Retirement…
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Utilities Face Paperwork Blizzard to Provide Relief
by Steve Haner Virginia utility customers who are behind on their bills in the COVID-19 recession are closer to receiving government payments toward their debts, but there is one more paperwork hurdle that may trip some of them. A few days ago, the Virginia State Corporation Commission completed a preliminary allocation of the $100 million…
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In Memory of Stuart Connock
by Dick Hall-Sizemore A legend in Virginia government passed away this past Sunday. Stuart Connock dominated state government finance in the 1970s and 1980s. Before that, he was the one that Governor Mills Godwin tapped to implement the new sales tax. His influence was felt long even long after he retired. Stuart (everyone who worked…
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Medicaid Enrollment Reaches 1.5 Million Virginians
By Steve Haner Just under two years into Virginia’s Medicaid expansion, and less than one year into a pandemic-sparked economic crisis, enrollment in the program is now about 1.5 million Virginians. Enrollment has grown more than 25% in less than two years and spending more than 30%. The financial impact on state taxpayers has been…
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Stewart Gets Last-Minute Gift From Trump
Peter Galuszka Corey A. Stewart, a conservative firebrand from Prince William County, is getting a last-minute going-away present from President Donald Trump. As Trump’s administration comes to an end, Trump has created a position on trade at the U.S. Commerce Department that is just for him. In 2016, Stewart headed Trump’s Virginia election campaign before…
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More Falsehoods and Malarkey from Clean Virginia
By Steve Haner The big money behind the Clean Virginia activist group was all earned by a Charlottesville hedge fund manager through the great American system of capitalism. That didn’t stop his organization from a recent attack that could have come from Communist Party USA. This one would have made Bernie Sanders blush. Dominion Energy…
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The University of Virginia Eastern Virginia Medical School
by James C. Sherlock With additional information and thoughts generated by responses to my original posts on this matter, I offer this post as a final proposal before the November 15 release of the Sentara-funded “study” of what I call the Sentara Plan for Eastern Virginia Medical school. The nation is short of doctors and…
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Northam’s Tax Hikes Keeping Virginia Budget Afloat
This column was published originally in the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy newsletter. Steve normally re-publishes it on Bacon’s Rebellion himself, but he is volunteering at the polls today, so I am posting for him. — JAB by Steve Haner One quarter into the new fiscal year, despite the ongoing COVID-19 recession, Virginia state…
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Assembly Protected Utilities, Not Other Businesses
First published this morning (with some slight differences) by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. By Steve Haner Now that the Virginia General Assembly’s “Cops and COVID” special session is all but finished, will it be easier or harder for the state’s struggling economy to recover in 2021? It will be harder, probably, except…
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Finally — a New Budget Bill
By Dick Hall-Sizemore The money committees have reported a “conference” budget bill, which the General Assembly will probably adopt either tomorrow or Saturday. The legislature has backed off the earlier contingency appropriations that drew objections from the Governor. As with any budget, there are numerous moving parts. The legislature would capture savings in several areas…