Bacon's Rebellion

It’s time to don the smoking jacket and settle down with the pipe, a glass of sherry and the latest edition of the Bacon’s Rebellion e-zine. You can be confident in the knowledge that you will not embarrass yourself when friends ask you which publication you read each morning. “Me? Why, I read Bacon’s Rebellion!”

Virginia’s budget is in better shape than lawmakers thought back in August when Gov. Timothy M. Kaine announced that the commonwealth had a $641 million General Fund shortfall to close in the current fiscal year (Fiscal 2008). A combination of new budget estimates, administrative cost cutting and savings identified by the General Assembly could allow the state to end the year, which ends June 30, with a small surplus.

Since Kaine announced his alarming findings, “later reviews and estimates put the gap around $429 million, thanks in part to lower costs for programs like Medicaid and higher than anticipated revenue for the Virginia Lottery,” reports Garren Shipley at the Northern Virginia Daily, citing a recent House Appropriations Committee report.

Meanwhile, Kaine has ordered more than $300 million in administrative cuts this year, and House appropriators have identified roughly $375 million more in savings and cuts. Potentially, the General Fund could end the fiscal year with as much as $219 million to spare, Shipley writes.

In Fiscal 2009, this year’s budget reductions and modest revenue growth should bring the General Fund to within $50 million to $150 million of balancing — even when a $1.1 billion Standards of Quality re-benchmarking is thrown into the mix. By fiscal 2010, the state should return to its normal pattern of budget surpluses.

(You can view the House Appropriations Committee report here.)

Times may be tight in Richmond as the economy slows and the Northern Virginia real estate sector sputters, taking a bite out of recordation tax revenues, but there is a glimmer of good news on the spending side. Projected costs for Medicaid, one of the major drivers of state spending, are expected to moderate over the next couple of years.

According to a presentation, “Budget Outlook: 2008 Session,” prepared by the House Appropriations Committee for its annual retreat earlier this month, Medicaid spending has increased at an average annual rate of 8.3 percent since Fiscal 1996, hitting 15 percent in Fiscal 2003. Expenditures are expected to moderate: 7.0 percent this year, 6.1 percent in Fiscal 2009, and 5.4 percent in Fiscal 2010.

The House document cites slower enrollment growth of children, pregnant women and low-income adults, a slowdown in growth of the elderly and disabled, and a moderation in health care inflation.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

Update: Matt Leighty with the Virginia Hospital and Healthcare Association offers a gloomier long-term prognosis than the House. Click on “comments” below to read his commentary.

The state Senate has eleven committees: Today, under Republican control, all 11 are chaired by white men representing districts than are more rural than typical for the state. In January, seven committees will be chaired by women, four by African-Americans (three of whom are women) and only three by white males. Northern Virginians will have the most powerful General Assembly representation ever. So opines Anita Kumar with the Washington Post.

As for priorities, writes Kumar, “many legislators believe the shift in the Senate will mean a greater focus on roads and transit, growth controls, crime and economic development.”

She also quotes Sen. Walter Stosch, R-Henrico, the outgoing Senate Majority Leader. Democratic leaders, he says, are “finding out how difficult it is balancing the interests in the state. You truly have to take into account geographic diversity, even if it’s in conflict with seniority.”

The nugget of insight from the Stosch quote is this: The politics of geography will continue to trump the politics of party, race and gender. Ds and Rs from the same region will frequently join to push issues of regional import. Likewise, Ds and Rs will remain responsive to the big-money interests that dominate the campaign contributions. Unquestionably, the state Senate will be more responsive to left-side-of-the-aisle culture war issues and to redistribution-of-wealth issues. Without a commitment to Fundamental Change, the machinations of the General Assembly will grind on much as before.

I saw a link to a USA Today story entitled, “The First Real Thanksgiving.” I clicked on it, eagerly anticipating that a national publication would give credence to Virginia’s claim to having celebrated the first thanksgiving in North America. Finally, I thought, those pesky pilgrims would get their comeuppance.

Indeed, they did. But the article said nothing about Virginia’s Thanksgiving — it was all about some nonsense down in St. Augustine. Floridian Robyn Gioia contends that Pedro Menendez de Aviles landed there on Sept. 8, 1565, and celebrated a feast of thanksgiving with the Timucua Indians. They dined on bean soup.

Bean soup? Some actually gave thanks for bean soup? I don’t think so!

Not much. At least the litter doesn’t ask for your vote.

When I was driving through Northern Virginia a couple of months ago, I was astounded by the proliferation of electioneering placards along heavily traveled roads. Wooden sign posts and paper posters had transformed median strips and intersections into veritable chapparals of signage, stretching as far as the eye could see. If Virginia had Santa Ana winds, one stray spark would have burned the entire region down.

Here in sedate, old Richmond, people might post a sign or two in their front yard, but we don’t assult one another with political signs in the same way. It would be considered… gauche… tacky. I know we move a lot slower than our brethren in NoVa, but I appreciate living in a region where people still show an element of courtesy to one another.

Now, it seems, even Northern Virginians are running short of patience for this assault on their senses, according to the Fairfax Times. Fairfax County officials have received so many complaints about the signs that Supervisor Michael Frey, R-Sully, has introduced a motion to reduce the number of days the signs can be displayed and to increase the fines for violations. Board Chairman Gerry Connolly says he might even support an amendment restricting signs to private property.

Go for it. You won’t regret it.

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a conservative group associated with Lynne Cheney and committed to academic freedom on American campuses, has made an issue of the “Bias Incident Reporting System” at William & Mary. The system encourages members of the W&M community to report “biased behavior” to a special committee, asserts ACTA in a recent press release.

Originally, the system was designed to encourage people to file complaints over “harassment, intimidation or other hostile behavior that is directed at a member of the William and Mary community because of that person’s race, sex (including pregnancy), age, color, disability, national or ethnic origin, political affiliation, religion, sexual orientation, or veteran status,” reports ACTA.

Some students, alumni and at least one law school professor objected to the “schoolyard tattletale system” designed to support a “politically skewed code of conduct.” They took the issue public, running an ad in the student newspaper in October, and launching a website.

According to ACTA, W&M has since modified the “bias incident reporting system” web page, which now states:

The Reporting System does not create a new category of prohibited behavior or a new process for members of the College community to be disciplined or sanctioned. The Bias Incident Reporting Team has no authority to discipline any student or member of the faculty or staff. When reported conduct is subject to existing College disciplinary or judicial procedures, referral services will be provided by the Chair of the Bias Incident Response Team. For example, if conduct by a faculty member is reported as a bias incident, the matter will be pursued through applicable procedures set forth in the Faculty Handbook.

“The administration can tinker with the system all it wants. The fact is, it needs to go,” said Anne D. Neal, president of ACTA. “The system is ripe for abuse, and the administration has offered no reason for why it’s needed. What’s wrong with free speech?” ACTA has written President Gene R. Nichol urging him to scrap the system. He has not answered the letter.

There are two ways to react to this controversy. While the W&M has the potential for abuse, one could argue, ACTA offers no evidence that it has been abused. Has anyone been unjustly persecuted? If not, what’s the big fuss?

But there’s another way of looking at it: Why even institute such a measure in the first place? Has W&M been plagued with incidents of bias? Does intolerance threaten the delicate harmony of the college community? If not, why set up a full-blown administrative apparatus — a reporting sytem, an incident reporting team, and referrals to college disciplinary procedures — for a problem that doesn’t exist?

This controversy strikes me as a tempest in a teapot. But it speaks volumes about the politically correct attitudes reigning in the W&M administration and the distrust that President Nichol has engendered among many of his alumni.

You thought Virginians were tough when it comes to illegal immigration? New Zealanders are even tougher with would-be legal immigrants, especially those that might impose an extra burden on the social safety net.

New Zealand has just nixed an immigration request by a Welsh woman on the grounds that she is too fat. Welchman Richie Trezise, a submarine cable specialist, managed to lose enough weight to gain permission from the health-conscious Kiwis to enter the country. But his wife Rowan didn’t make the cut. If he wants to take the job, he’ll have to go to New Zealand without her.

The (London) Telegraph quotes Robyn Toomath, an endocrinologist and spokesman for Fight the Obesity Epidemic, as saying she opposes the stigmatizing of obese people. “However, the immigration department’s focus is different. It cannot afford to import people into the country who are going to be a significant drain on our health resources. You can see the logic in assessing if there is a significant health cost associated with this individual and that would be a reason for them not coming in.”

A “significant drain on our health resources”… Where have we heard that before?