Category: Taxes
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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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EPA: PM 2.5 At Current Levels is No Threat
By Steve Haner “Everything is a poison, nothing is a poison. It is the dose that makes the poison” – Paracelsus (1493-1541 AD) A micron is a tiny thing. A grain of beach sand is about 90 microns, and a human hair 50 to 70 microns in diameter. In the coming session of the General…
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Does a $9 Billion Carbon Tax Get Your Attention?
by Steve Haner The 2021 General Assembly is now six weeks away, with the holidays in between. We know no more about the coming Northam Administration proposal to impose a carbon tax and rationing scheme on our motor fuels than we did months ago. Keeping you uninformed may be part of the plan. All we…
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Carbon Tax Advocates Who Lost in November
Editor’s Note: A cautionary tale as the 2021 Virginia General Assembly prepares to debate another major carbon tax? By Paul D. Craney One of the most overlooked stories on Election Day was the defeat of pro-carbon tax politicians across the nation and here in New England. The most notable carbon tax proponent to seek office in…
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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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TCI: Taxing the Poor to Benefit the Rich
By Steve Haner “I think TCI is just taxing poor people so that we can subsidize rich people’s electric cars.” So said New Jersey’s Maria Lopez-Nuñez, Deputy Director, Organizing and Advocacy for the Ironbound Community Corporation. She was speaking during an online seminar September 29 organized by Transportation and Climate Initiative advocates. That particular comment…
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One Governor Blinks on Carbon Tax. Will Northam?
By Steve Haner The governor of Massachusetts stated yesterday that he and other unnamed governors in Transportation and Climate Initiative states are reconsidering the new carbon tax. Is our Governor Ralph Northam among them? He has a news conference this afternoon and somebody should ask. From a post late yesterday at the Boston Herald: “Gov.…
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RGGI Carbon Tax Hits Dominion Bills Next Summer
By Steve Haner Beginning August 1 of next year, Dominion Energy Virginia proposes to begin to collect the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative carbon tax from its customers, collecting $168 million during the first year through yet another of those proliferating rate adjustment clauses (or “RACs”). It will get it by charging a flat $.002388 per…
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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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Big Tax-Hike Push Coming
by Chris Saxman Earlier today I was asked by Virginia Business Magazine what the business community could expect in the 2021 General Assembly Regular Session. I talked about the construct of the short session with a gubernatorial election, House of Delegates staving off primary challenges, bills that were not passed last session, and the prospects…
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Joe Biden, the SALT Cap and Virginia’s Hidden Taxes
by DJ Rippert SALT of the Earth. The Trump Administration pushed through a change to the US tax code which capped the deduction for State And Local Taxes (SALT) at $10,000 per year. Previously there had been no cap. The imposition of the cap effectively increased the federal taxes paid by high-income earners, especially in…
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Energy “PIPP” Proposal Just the TIP of an Iceberg
By Steve Haner As the State Corporation Commission prepares to set up Virginia’s first electricity cost shifting program, using a tax on all electric bills to provide discounts to low-income customers, advocates are already pushing to expand and enrich it. An expert hired by an environmental group argues in testimony that the General Assembly erred…
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Fairfax Tax Rate the Same, but Tax Burden Up
by Emilio Jaksetic The massive lockdown triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic has caused many businesses and workers to lose significant amounts of income and forced them into financially precarious situations. Despite the undeniable financial pain and suffering that many businesses, workers, and households are facing, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors insisted upon another increase…
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Is DMV Hiding 26% of Virginia’s Fuel Tax?
By Steve Haner The Division of Motor Vehicles website is not honestly reporting fuel taxes in Virginia on that table above. This cannot be an oversight.