Category: Government workers and pensions
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Spanberger Right to Veto Public Employee Unionization Bill
by Derrick A. Max Virginia Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell, the sponsor of a sweeping public-sector collective bargaining bill (Senate Bill 378) said Governor Spanberger told him Wednesday that she planned to veto the legislation. If she does, she will be making the right decision for Virginia taxpayers, local governments, students, public employees and for her status as the…
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A Consequential Fight
by James C. Sherlock Michael Martz of the Richmond Times-Dispatch published an excellent report April 15 detailing the three-way fight among Governor Abigail Spanberger and various Democrats in the Virginia Senate and House of Delegates over the budget. The Governor proposed “hundreds of changes” to the competing budget bills proposed by each chamber. Long story…
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Bargaining Bill Would Trample Public Employee Rights
by Chris Braunlich Tuesday’s column discussed some of the reasons Governor Spanberger should amend or veto the public employee collective bargaining bill headed to her desk: the local and state taxpayer costs, the creation of new bureaucracies, the opposition of local Democrats and a majority of local government and school board leaders and, perhaps most persuasively, the…
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Will Union “Dues Skimming” Come to Virginia?
by Chris Braunlich There are many reasons why Governor Abigail Spanberger should veto the collective bargaining bill headed to her desk, a bill requiring local and state governments to bargain with union bosses even if less than a majority of public employees want the union or the bargaining. There is the fact that it will…
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Sever the New Severance Policy
by Jon Baliles With all of the issues facing Richmond on a daily, monthly, and annual basis and limited funds to address them, Mayor Danny Avula has decided as City Council debates his new proposed budget, he also wants to update the city’s pay plan with a five-pound bag of sugar to sweeten and fatten…
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Pax Virginiae: Preparing Virginia’s Future Leaders for Service in War and Peace
by Kenrick Brown The Washington, D.C.–Maryland–Virginia super-region — amusingly known as the “DMV” — is a vital center of American national security and the Free World’s global governance. If there is a “Pax Americana,” an American-led global order, then the “DMV” is arguably analogous to a modern-day Ancient Rome, but with nice suburban outskirts. How…
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Public Union Bills Causing Angst Among Local Democratic Officials
by Steve Haner Legislation to expand the potential for union contracts to cover most local and state employees is on the verge of approval if Democrats in the House of Delegates and Senate can reconcile two versions of the bill. They might also have to reconcile with locally elected Democratic officials. Many of them have…
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Mandated Public-Sector Unions Will Drive Up Property Taxes
by the Liberty Unyielding staff In Virginia, the Democratic state legislature is likely to adopt legislation that requires local governments to engage in collective bargaining with public-employee unions. If the local government and the union can’t agree on a big wage hike, an arbitrator will still be able to order the big wage hike if the arbitrator…
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VRS Slowly Closing the Funding Gap
But liabilities still exceed assets by 17 percent. Earlier this week, we discussed how deferred maintenance represents a form of hidden deficit spending. Underfunding pension contributions is another classic gambit of state government. Since bottoming out in the mid-2010s, the Virginia Retirement System has been inching closer each year toward full funding for teachers and…
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Government Shutdown Threatens to Upend Governor’s Race
By Chris Braunlich For more than a half century, it has been the case that Virginia elects a Governor who is from the opposite party as the President elected the year before. With one exception. In 2013, the year after Barack Obama’s re-election, Virginians sent Democrat Terry McAuliffe to the Governor’s Mansion. The background to…
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The Inherent Conflict of Interest in Bargaining with Public-Sector Unions
by J. Kennerly Davis In the spring of 2020 — with Democrats controlling the Senate, the House of Delegates, and the Governor’s mansion – the General Assembly narrowly passed and Governor Northam signed HB-582, now set out in Section 40.1-57.2 of the Code of Virginia. That law, enacted during the widely disorienting onset of Covid,…
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Federal Workers: No Place to Hide
by Kerry Dougherty Do indignant federal workers who act as if it’s beneath their dignity to account for their work hours have any idea how petulant and entitled they seem to the rest of us? Apparently not. This woman is griping that she has two days to knock out five bullet points about what she…
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Index Taxes for Inflation Before Raising Legislator Pay for Inflation
By Steve Haner The Virginia General Assembly is maneuvering to raise its own pay to adjust for decades of inflation. To do so without showing similar consideration for the impact of inflation on Virginia taxpayers should be cause for a voter revolt. No tax code indexing, no pay raise. To its credit, the staff at the…
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Spanberger Bill Brings Looming Social Security Shortfall Closer
By Andrew Biggs Over 300 members of Congress from both parties, including Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Rep. Abigail Spanberger, are pushing for legislation that would grant a nearly $200 billion Social Security benefits windfall to a group that neither paid for these benefits nor truly needs them. (She advocated it in the Richmond Times-Dispatch this…
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The Aggressive Progressive Democratic Agenda
By Steve Haner The Democrats now running Virginia’s General Assembly are not just more progressive, but far more ambitious than their predecessors. To fully understand how ambitious you must compile the entire list of progressive bills advancing in the 2024 session and consider their total impact on the cost of living and cost of doing…