Bacon's Rebellion

The liberal Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis projects a $1.2 billion shortfall in the state budget in the upcoming 2008-2010 state budget. The problem, according to authors Michael Cassidy and Cory Kaufman in a Times-Dispatch column today, is not excessive spending but insufficient revenue. Despite Gov. Mark R. Warner’s 2004 tax increases, they write, “Virginia never fully replaced the resources consumed by the car-tax relief effort” of the Gilmore administration.

That’s one point of view. Then there’s the perspective laid out by Del. Chris Saxman, R-Staunton, in a counterpoint column: “Revenues to the commonwealth have increased by more than 50 percent in just three budget cycles — one of which included a recession where revenues were flat-lining to declining.”

Perhaps Virginians should be seeking ways to curtail spending, Saxman says — not by cutting programs but “challenging ourselves to find ways to improve efficiency, thus better serving Virginia’s citizens in a more cost-effective manner.”

Saxman suggests fully implementing the recommendations of the Wilder Commission from earlier in the decade, implementing findings of the Cost Cutting Caucus and the Kaine administration’s operational review teams, making the state budget more transparent to the public, and focusing on the drivers of state spending: Medicaid and K-12 education.

Concludes Saxman: “Virginia’s place in the world’s dynamic economy must not be set by two-year mindsets with statist, linear and short-term thinking.”

In the course of human evolution, first came hunting-gathering, then the agricultural revolution and then the industrial revolution. Arguably, the United States has evolved into a post-industrial society, though no one seems quite sure what to call it — perhaps the knowledge economy. But what comes after that?

Larry:

Good to have you back. I did not pay attention and did not realize how far north you were going. 200 miles west of Ft Simpson is just a few miles from the end of the earth. I suspect the forest fires have not gotten up there yet.

While you were gone Groveton asked a question about retrofitting Great Falls to be a functional Village. We are working on a column on that topic that will address the questions your about “traditional village development” on greenfield sites.

Groveton:

You may have seen this but today’s WaPo on B2 there is a “Virginia Briefing” item “Group of Independents to Make Endorsements” by Sandhya Somashekhr.

Also see note on your Great Falls question above.

Mr. Leahy:

Glad to see your “Castles in the Sand” column on settlement pattern issues. Keep up the good work.

EMR

For once, I agree with a Roanoke Times editorial writer. What do the families of seven shooting victims killed at Virginia Tech think they can accomplish with the lawsuits they are considering?

The relocation of the Volkswagen of America corporate headquarters from a Detroit suburb to Fairfax County is an undeniable economic development coup for Virginia — Northern Virginia in particular. The deal will bring 400 high-paying jobs to the state. Average annual salary: $125,000, high even by Northern Virginia standards. Another major headquarters adds to the region’s prestige as a world-class business center. And you can’t buy the kind of press you get when CEO Stefan Jacoby says (to quote the Detroit Free Press), “We are a company of innovators and bold-thinking people who want to challenge the status quo and we know we will fit very well here.” By “here,” he meant Northern Virginia.

But the deal does raise questions. The Commonwealth of Virginia is providing $6 million in incentives to land the $100 million investment. That’s chump change compared to what the state spends to bring industry to other parts of the state, and NoVa economic developers can justifiably argue that it’s time they get their share of state largesse.

But here’s the rub: Does it make sense for Virginia to subsidize Volkswagen’s relocation when the creation of 400 jobs to the region’s super-heated economy can be met only by the infux of new residents to the state? According to the Virginia Employment Commission, the region’s unemployment rate stood at 2.3 percent in July. That’s not unemployment, that’s a labor shortage. (Every economy has a irreducible minimum of workers in transition — students leaving schools, moms rejoining the workforce, laid off workers transitioning to new jobs, etc.) Those 400 jobs means 400 people moving into Virginia — even more, if you include the multiplier effect created by their spending in the local economy.

Fairfax County will enjoy a nice $100 million boost to its tax base, yielding roughly $900,000 a year in tax revenues. But where will the newcomers live? Will they live in Fairfax County? If so, what will the county incur in additional public-service obligations? Conversely, what if some VW employees choose not to live in Fairfax? How far will they have to drive to work, and how much stress will they place on an already overloaded transportation system? What will the state’s financial liability be accommodate another 400 drivers on state roads?

Another question: Dominion Virginia Power is projecting that Northern Virginia will begin experiencing brownouts within four years. Does the state need to be subsidizing the influx of 400 more residents to put even more strain on the electric power grid?

Look, it’s a free country. If Volkswagen USA wants to move to Virginia, that’s great. But under the current circumstances, I wonder about the wisdom of the state inducing the company to move with $6 million in subsidies. Maybe the high salaries paid to VW executives will represent a net gain to the taxpayers of Virginia. Maybe. But we don’t know. If the state has made any cost-benefit calculations, it hasn’t made them public.

It is conventional wisdom now that the massive influx of out-of-staters, mostly northerners, into Virginia is altering the state’s political complexion — challenging the once-invincible power base of the Republican Party. House Speaker William J. Howell allowed as much when speaking yesterday at a gathering of the Virginia Foundation for Research and Economic Education.

Howell said the state’s newest residents may not embrace the “shared values we have in Virginia,” reports Jeff Schapiro with the Times-Dispatch. The changing demographics of Virginia are “something that we have to adjust to.”

Maybe the GOP will adapt to the changing demographics, maybe it won’t. (I shy away from predicting political outcomes.) What you can count on is that the political center of Virginia will shift left, towards larger, more activist government, whichever party remains in control. Here’s my question: Will northern-born voters bring the same values and re-create the same kind of political economy that constricted economic opportunity in their home states and brought them to Virginia? Are the attitudes of the newcomers toward the size and role of government compatible with Virginia maintaining its “Best State for Business” rating?

Bottom line: Is Virginia’s government destined to look more like New York’s and New Jersey’s and less like North Carolina’s and Georgia’s? If so, what will that mean for our long-term prosperity?

Jeff Zaslow’s Wall Street Journal column continues a discussion about how society is teaching kids to fear men.

As the father of an eight year-old boy, this topic hits close to the mark, doubly so once I read Zaslow’s piece, which is based on feedback he received from readers regarding his first column on this topic. Snip:

Frank McEnulty, a builder in Long Beach, Calif., was once a Boy Scout scoutmaster. “Today, I wouldn’t do that job for anything,” he says. “All it takes is for one kid to get ticked off at you for something and tell his parents you were acting weird on the campout.”

It’s true that men are far more likely than women to be sexual predators. But our society, while declining to profile by race or nationality when it comes to crime and terrorism, has become nonchalant about profiling men. Child advocates are advising parents never to hire male babysitters. Airlines are placing unaccompanied minors with female passengers.

Child-welfare groups say these precautions minimize risks. But men’s rights activists argue that our societal focus on “bad guys” has led to an overconfidence in women. (Children who die of physical abuse are more often victims of female perpetrators, usually mothers, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.)

Coincidentally, I am now, also, the adult leader of my son’s Cub Scout Den. Before I can fully assume those duties, I must first take the BSA’s online course in child protection and in addition, I must allow the church which sponsors the Pack to conduct a background check on me to ensure that I am not a predator/scofflaw/deadbeat. If I do not give them permission to investigate me, I will not be allowed to perform any functions with the Den. Period.

In some ways, I can appreciate the scrutiny. Screening for creeps is probably long overdue and, given the potential for legal liability, regrettably necessary.

Still, it leaves me cold, and wondering whether all this scrutiny — however well intentioned — doesn’t reinforce the perception that all men are suspect. My son and I have a good relationship (he still calls me DaDa… at least when none of his friends are present). And he still holds my hand, whether we’re crossing the street, or simply because he feels like it.

It’s a small, but very touching gesture. One day, he’ll stop doing it and that will be a sad day, indeed.

But now I wonder…do others who see me holding his hand think I’m some sort of trench-coated creep who ought to be reported? Does it help that our own Attorney General has made a virtual crusade out of tracking down online predators — a crusade that’s repeatedly reinforced by a stream of breathless press releases?

No, it doesn’t. While there can be no doubt whatsoever that depravity exists and that predators, creeps and weirdos can and have inflicted great pain on so many innocent lives, they are are distinct, deserved minority. Society has the right and the responsibility to punish them.

But in doing so, it does not have the right to make suspects of us all.

“The most important and precious resource in the world today is not oil. It’s not water. It’s brainpower,” Gov. Timothy M. Kaine told business leaders in Harrisonburg yesterday as he stumped Western Virginia in support of his pre-K expansion initiative. “Strategies that increase our brainpower are going to keep us on top.” (See the Daily News Record story here.)

I totally and whole-heartedly concur. But there our agreement stops.

It does not necessarily follow from Kaine’s initial premise that the most cost-efficient way of increasing “brainpower” among Virginia’s youth is to spend an additional $75 million to expand the scope of existing Virginia’s pre-K programs, which currently cost $50 million already.

Why not invest in kindergarten? Municipalities in Northern Virginia, in Virginia’s educational vanguard, are dedicating their extra resources to expanding kindergarten, not pre-K. (See “Forget Full-Time Pre-K, How about Full-Time Kindergarten?“) What do they know that the Governor does not?

Why not invest in middle school? For purposes of argument, I will accept Gov. Kaine’s assertions that pre-K improves pupil performance in the early grades. But Virginia national standardized tests show Virginia students performing comparatively well in elementary school. The problems in the Virginia educational system manifest themselves in middle school, where performance slides markedly. Why not target middle school with extra resources instead?

Even that point begs a number of larger questions. Why does Gov. Kaine find it necessary to raise $75 million in new revenue for his initiative? With state aid to public education in Virginia amounting to $6.7 billion in Fiscal 2008, he can’t carve out $75 million? Isn’t it time we take a look at the rigid funding allocation formulas that deprive governors of any flexibility in educational spending?

Speaking of the subject of rigid, centralized educational bureaucracy in Richmond, why does Virginia permit so little experimentation within its school system? To raise the questions posed earlier by Norm Leahy, why don’t we have more charter schools? Why can’t we give parents a wider array of choices, via vouchers, of where to send their children to school?

(Governor to taxpayer: Cough it up, you little twerp!)

While Gov. Timothy M. Kaine talks up his bid to expand pre-k funding for disadvantaged children, Northern Virginia localities have a different priority: expanding their kindergarten programs from part-time to full-time. Fairfax County, home to one in seven Virginians, is spending $5.6 million this year to expand part-time programs to full-time at 21 more schools, bringing the full-time total to 94 countywide, reports Maria Glod with the Washington Post.

Arlington County and Alexandria already have full-time programs, while Prince William is moving to one this year. Of Northern Virginia’s most populous jurisdictions, only fiscally stressed Loudoun County is not evolving to full-time Kindergarten.