Bacon's Rebellion

We’re a day late, but better late than never. You can check out the February 20, 2007, edition of the Bacon’s Rebellion e-zine here, and you make sure to never miss an issue by subscribing here.

Transportation Abomination
Mutant offspring of a tortured political process, the transportation compromise before the General Assembly will do more harm than good. It needs to be strangled in the crib.
by James A. Bacon

Looking Down the Road
Even as the General Assembly finalizes its political short-term response to transportation finance challenges, the long-term has arrived.
by Doug Koelemay

The Transportation Tax Panic
The transportation package backed by House and Senate Republicans would raise taxes and create unaccountable regional governments — just to help the GOP survive the next election.
by James Atticus Bowden

What About the Children?
In vilifying Walter Stosch’s tuition grants for disabled children, opponents decry the impact on schools, teachers, principals, even lawyers — but never the children.
by Chris Braunlich

Slippery Slope
Virginia’s Republicans are backing higher taxes and bigger government, ostensibly to save themselves from electoral disaster. They are taking the path to minority status.
by Phil Rodokanakis

Falling Short
The transportation bills before the Senate and House of Delegates conferees fall short of the fundamental reforms needed in transportation planning and priority setting.
by Stewart Schwartz and Lisa Guthrie

Reforming Regional Government
Regional governments in Hampton Roads have a say in taxes, tolls and major investments in critical infrastructure, but the public is largely excluded from decision making. Here are some remedies.
by Reid Greenmun

Nice & Curious Questions
Tea Leaves and Lifelines: Predicting the Future in Virginia
by Edwin S. Clay III and Patricia Bangs

Good news today! One of the Right WingNut e-newsletters has noted Bacons’ Rebellion at the top of its list of “The ‘Right’ Blogs”

We were a little concerned that this would tarnish Jim Bacon’s pledge to provide all sides of every issue.

Then we heard that one of the leading Left WingNut e-newsletters was going to put Bacon’s Rebellion at the top of its “Best Blogs” list.

Congratulations Jim!

EMR

Sorry, folks, I had to attend to a family medical emergency over the weekend. Not only did I have to suspend blogging, but I have to delay publication of the Bacon’s Rebellion e-zine. With luck, we’ll be back on track tomorrow.

Today’s Daily Press (Sunday Feb. 18, 2007) reports the following about the Transportation plans in the General Assembly:

“That plan also proposed a variety of fee increases and set up regional funding approaches for Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia.”

Actually, the ‘regional approaches’ are called a ‘political sub-division of the Commonwealth’ in the bills – or in english – a regional government. Regional government not a regional funding approach.

The fee increases and funding approaches are called taxes. Taxes. New taxes and increased taxes.

Why would the Daily Press not use clear words – like unelected, unaccountable, unseparated powers Regional Government? Or, let the readers know the Regional Government is almost precisely the same wording as the one they rejected 2:1 across Hampton Roads in 2002? (And across the Commonwealth in rejecting a Constitutional amendment in 1998?)

Or, mention that the projects INCREASE the congested miles across Hampton Roads?

Or, that miles driven in Hampton Roads has flat-lined since 2003?

Does this shaded speech, and omitted facts, have anything to do with the declining subscriptions to the Daily Press?

That some conservatives have become disillusioned with the GOP both in Virginia and nationally is no secret. The reasons are many and they seem to be growing with each passing day. But what to do about it?

In this American Conservative piece, Paul Weyrich and William Lind say there’s a whole heap of things to do, not all of which bode well for the GOP:

Real conservatism rejects all ideologies, recognizing them as armed cant. In their place, it offers a way of life built upon customs, traditions, and habits—themselves the products of the experiences of many generations. Because people are capable of learning over time, when they may do so in a specific, continuous cultural setting, the conservative way of life comes to reflect the prudential virtues: modesty, the dignity of labor, conservation and saving, the importance of family and community, personal duties and obligations, and caution in innovation. While these virtues tend to manifest themselves in most traditional societies, with variations conservatives usually value, they have had their happiest outcome in the traditional culture of the Christian West.

From this it follows that the next conservatism’s foremost task is defending and restoring Western, Judeo-Christian culture. Not only does this mean the next conservatism is cultural conservatism, it also tells us we must look beyond politics.

In looking “beyond politics,” takes Weyrich and Lind to culture, where they believe the true battle for a conservative future will be fought (though not, they say, coercively, but by example).

That many people, and not just conservatives, believe modern culture is a cesspool of corruption, the authors believe that countering its influence effectively means to turn ones back upon it. Who hasn’t had the inclination to toss the television off the roof (as they note Russell Kirk did)? Who hasn’t rolled their eyes over the wall-to-wall coverage of Anna Nicole’s death, or the latest L.A. car chase? I certainly have. Modern culture’s banality can be maddening and suffocating. But it’s also a reflection of who and what we are, or at least who and what the ratings tell the programmers we are. Does this mean we should march back, as Weyrich and Lind suggest, to a 1950s world, where communities were simpler, progress slower, and everyone’s children above average?

No. Such a world never really existed, at least not for the mass. If anything, this gentle age was golden only for some — while others suffered mightily and needlessly.

However much their yearning for the past strikes me as unreal, some of the ideas they put forward for a new conservative agenda are worth pondering — including an embrace of New Urbanism, a distancing from the automobile culture and a profound reshaping of the political culture. Are the authors skeptical of the political class? Oh yes:

Restoring the Republic requires breaking the monopoly of professional politicians and two parties that are for the most part one party—the Party of I’ve Got Mine. The next conservatism should promote increased use of ballot initiatives and referenda, term limits, putting “none of the above” on the ballot and requiring a new election with new candidates if it wins, and ending legalized bribery under the name of campaign contributions. Yes, they sell their votes. The two-party monopoly has generated a vast culture of corruption in Washington, and corruption is any republic’s deadliest enemy.

I can relate to much of this, having pursued (with assistance from Weyrich) the issue of term limits. There is a rot in the political class today. They are, as a group, profoundly shallow and unserious about the nature of the challenges and threats the nation faces. They are also, as a group, lacking in self-awareness, or even something as basic as common sense. None of this behaviour is new. And, to give them credit an ounce of credit, politicians no longer beat one-another senseless on the floor of the House or Senate (though the occasional weapons discharge behind office doors is still not unknown).

While this is just a part of the Weyrich/Lind thesis, it is representative of what is a much larger and far deeper disconnect between some conservatives and the world around them. For politicians, not just in Virginia, but nationwide, the possibility of these ideas gaining broad acceptance ought to be immediately troubling.

But I suspect they are not. We have to regulate teen cellphone use first. Then we’ll get to the big stuff. Just so long as it isn’t an election year.

The Virginia State Bar, the body that regulates state attorneys, wants to erase an ethics rule “that for a half-century has prohibited the state’s legislators from being employed alongside lobbyists at the commonwealth’s largest law firms,” reports Michael Shear at the Washington Post. Virginia’s rule is stronger than that of many other states, where lawmakers and lobbyists do work for the same law firm.

But the idea is opposed by some within the General Assembly, such as Del. Clark N. Hogan, R-Charlotte, who say it could create conflicts of interest for lawmakers and lobbyists employed by the same firm, and would accentuate the perception of the legislature as a good old boy’s club “where deals are cut behind closed doors instead of in public committee rooms.”

Writes Shear:

Pressure to eliminate the rule in Virginia was sparked in part by Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath, who recently joined the law firm of Hirschler Fleischer P.C., a Richmond-based firm with a small lobbying presence. Without the proposed change, Deeds would be violating state ethics rules.

Deeds, who describes himself as a small-town rural lawyer, said his losing bid for attorney general in 2005 made it nearly impossible to keep his small practice alive. His plans to run for governor in 2009 will require a more stable income, he said. But he said there will be a firewall between himself and the firm’s lobbyists.

A million dollar waste of your tax money ends March 1^st in Newport News (Daily Press Feb 13, 2007). The ‘Jump Over Jeff’ bus service ends. A Federal grant and some city money paid for service between two new urban shopping/living districts, Port Warwick and City Center which are maybe a mile apart – ‘jumping over Jefferson’ Avenue. The tax money paid for two buses and drivers. It cost a quarter to ride. The buses averaged 12 riders a day. Twelve. One Dozen.

There’s $1.5m left on the grant, so Newport News bureaucrats will start up a new bus route connecting Christopher Newport University , the centers and a shopping mall until that money runs out.

It’s wrong that the Federal government has so much money to throw away in boondoogles. A million here and a million there and soon you are talking about real money (to paraphrase Everett Dirksen). A million dollars more in Medicaid would mean what to Virginia? Or in Social Security?

It’s wrong that Newport News would employ a grant writer and covet the money – just because it is there.

It’s wrong for both governments to waste money on a less than brilliant transportation ‘solution’. If there was a economic need for the service a commercial enterprise could provide it. The governments would do well to make sure there are no barriers to bus/taxi/jeepney/rickshaw service – because if it is needed so much, then the citizens will pay for it.

This genius for wasting money is the same thinking for the big six projects for Hampton Roads in the Transportation bills in conference committee – that actually INCREASE the congested miles after 20 years.

This genius for wasting money is found in the same people who will be running the new level of government – the same unelected, unaccountable, unseparated powers Regional Government in the same Transportation abortion bills.

Thanks tax and spend Republicans. Thanks a lot.

Now the Transportation Abomination will be considered by the House and Senate conferees. Reconciling the House and Senate bills will be up to the following individuals:

House of Delegates:
Kirk Cox (R-Colonial Heights)
Morgan Griffin (R- Salem)
Algie Howell, Jr. (D-Norfolk)
Tim Hugo (R- Fairfax)
Chris Jones (R- Suffolk)
Terry Kilgore (R-Scott)

Senate:
Thomas Norment (R- James City)
Philip Puckett (D-Russell)
Ken Stolle (R- Virginia Beach)
Frank Wagner (R-Virginia Beach)
Martin Williams (R-Newport News)

This comes from the Northern Virginia Transportation Alliance:

Given that four of five Senate Conferees and all six House members voted for the House version, it’s probably fair to say odds favor the House version. Yet the fact that the full Senate rejected the House version means work remains to be done if a bill is to pass this year.

Also of note is the fact that architects of the Hampton Roads regional package are on the panel. Northern Virginia was not accorded similar representation.

And this from Garren Shipley at the NV Daily: Sen. Thomas Norment, R-Williamsburg, an architect of the compromise, is still predicting that the Senate could still support the GOP package.

Supporting Chichester’s version of the bill is just another way of saying “let me poke my finger in your eye one more time” to the House of Delegates, Norment said. “This vote is easy, man. This is pancakes here. … Voting on the committee report will be the real gut check — because that will be the absolute, last chance to do anything for transportation for the year. When it’s the conference committee or nothing, that’s when you really need to search your souls.

It looks like the General Assembly will pass some kind of legislation calling for the Virginia Retirement System to divest its holdings in companies doing business in Sudan, although the final details have yet to be worked out. (For a recent update, see this article in the Virginian-Pilot.)

The cause is unquestionably just: The Sudanese regime, culpable for the genocide in Darfur, is an international pariah. The Western world should treat it as such. SB1331, introduced by Sen. Ken Cuccinelli II, R-Fairfax, would require the VRS to divest itself of its investments in some eight foreign companies, mostly involved in the oil business, that do business in Sudan. As the Western world cannot bestir itself to send in troops to stop the slaughter, one could argue, we should at the very least make oil companies pay a price for propping up the rogue regime.

On the other hand, I do get nervous about telling the VRS how to invest, or divest, its money. Today it’s the Sudan. Tomorrow, it’s…. who? The Sudan is not the only objectionable regime in the world — its atrocities just happen to be better publicized than those of others. Should we divest ourselves of companies that do business in Burma? How about Saudi Arabia, the underwriter of radical Islamic madrassas, and a root cause of terrorism, around the world? Or, changing gears, should the VRS divest itself of companies that sell armaments to foreign governments… or emit greenhouse gases…. or fail to pay a “living wage”?

In other words, should VRS investment policies be subject to second guessing by anyone, for any cause, who can mobilize enough votes to get a majority vote in the General Assembly? As the VRS Board of Trustees argues, earnings from investments finance about 70 percent of the retirement system’s benefit payments. Restrictions on those investments could reduce earnings “at a cost to be borne by taxpayers.”

It’s a tough call. My heart sides with Cuccinelli. My reason sides with the VRS.

Welcome Mr. Leahy! Glad to have you on board!

I understand your concern for wasting money and diverting a new income stream to unworthy causes.

You did not comment on the observation in a past post that the real problem you noted in London is the need for Fundamental Change in governance structure. More on how you can help with that in a moment.

You also did not acknowledge the fact that throwing money into transport facilities, especially facilities to serve private vehicles is a waste.

With respect to London’s (or any) congestion pricing, the important metric is people and goods moved per hour and per day, not the congestion level among private vehicles.

Your source reports that congestion is down in spite of improvements to serve shared-vehicle systems. That sounds like a win / win.

Improvements to shared-vehicle systems are less of a waste and induce less new vehicular traffic than do improvements to private-vehicle systems. Perhaps improvements in the shared-vehicle system is where the money was supposed to go in the first place and it was not a diversion. Is that not a possibility?

There is a simple test of the Myth that putting money into new roadway improvements reduces congestion:

Name one New Urban Region in the First World where improvements in the roadway system have decreased REGIONAL vehicular congestion.

There is only two factors that strongly correlate with the speed of vehicle congestion growth. They are the size of the New Urban Region and the rate of population growth.

Over the period 1984 to 2004 (dates are from memory) there was no significant difference between the rate of congestion growth and the level of expenditure or the lane miles of roadway added. Houston is a good example of throwing good money after bad.

Now, the more important question for you on the issue of waste of revenue flow:

How can we get folks like you who are concerned with governments (and citizens) wasting money to focus on the fact that, especially the United States, an ever more dysfunctional settlement pattern is evolving. These patterns will continue to create higher and higher costs of goods and services (including the cost of mobility and access.)

It seems the real challenge for conservation, and conservatism in general, is to stop worrying about the nickels and dimes that are now wasted and start figuring out how to avoid future fiscal disaster.

It is clear that a democracy with a market economy cannot survive when the majority cannot afford the goods and services that they believe they deserve.

EMR

At the risk of wearing out my (very generous) welcome, there are a few more pieces to the congestion pricing discussion I’d like to add.

First up is this, again from the Daily Telegraph:

The London congestion charge has failed to cause a significant reduction in delays on the capital’s roads, it emerged yesterday.
In the last two years the congestion endured by drivers in central London has actually got worse, according to Transport for London figures.

The amount of traffic entering the zone during charging hours has been cut by around 20 per cent since the charge was introduced in 2003, but this has been largely offset by a reduction in the capacity of the capital’s roads, due to road works and the introduction of bus lanes.

Congestion fell by 30 per cent in the first year of the charging scheme but is now only 8 per cent below precharging levels.

The weswtward extension of the charging zone next week is expected to increase congestion in central London, as motorists living in Kensington and Chelsea will be entitled to discounted access to the existing zone.

Interesting. But it still looks as though overall congestion has declined. If it’s rising again, chalk it up to the habit many people have for adapting to disincentives if the eventual gain is great enough.

And in an example of how transportation rhetoric knows know international boundaries, consider this:

The Prime Minister’s spokesman insisted that ministers would press ahead with their plans for road-pricing pilot schemes. “Doing nothing is not an option and we know what will happen if we do nothing — congestion will get worse and worse,” he said.

Sounds awfully familiar, doesn’t it?

I am delighted to add Norm Leahy to the list of Bacon’s Rebellion contributors. Norm, as many of you know, was a blogging pioneer in Virginia. A talented wordsmith, he published the highly regarded One Man’s Trash blog before calling it quits a couple of months ago. But blogging is in his blood, and now he’s back, contributing to Bacon’s Rebellion and Bearing Drift.

Norm brings a conservative perspective to this blog as well as his own set of interests and priorities. Although he devoted his first post to the issue of congestion pricing, a perennial topic here at Bacon’s Rebellion, I encourage him to follow his personal passions. I know that I can be a one-note-Johnny when it comes to transportation and land use. Norm’s observations on a range of topics will give this blog a diversity of subject matter that it now lacks.