Bacon's Rebellion

The Wall Street Journal ran a front-page article last week profiling the rebels who were sabotaging oil infrastructure in the Nigerian river delta. They aren’t anti-American — they’re fighting the central government. But the effect is the same. During a period when energy supplies are incredibly tight around the world, rebels in the most obscure trouble spots have the ability to push up the global price of petroleum.

What does that have to do with Virginia? Plenty. As much as the United States as a nation is vulnerable to disruptions in global oil supplies, Virginia is even more vulnerable. That fact seems irrefutable in light of information passed along by reader Larry Gross. Two data points:

• Even by the porcine standards of the United States, Virginians are energy hogs, judging by a chart prepared by the California Energy Commission. Americans consumed 464 gallons of gasoline per capita in 2004. Virginians consumed 527 gallons — more than 13 percent more.
• In a survey of the vulnerability of the 50 largest U.S. cities to oil price shocks, “Washington, D.C.” scored fairly well at 11th best prepared. But Virginia Beach (Hampton Roads) ranked 46th! And the good news for Washington isn’t as good as it seems. If the authors of the SustainLane study had considered Northern Virginia separately from the District of Columbia, I’m quite certain the region would have scored even worse.

The General Assembly passed an energy bill this year which sought to improve Virginia’s energy supplies. That’s fine. Increasing domestic energy supplies and diversifying our foreign sources of supply are good ideas. But that’s only part of the solution. The piece the General Assembly neglects is conservation…. which means finding ways to get Virginians to drive less.

Unfortunately, while the General Assembly seeks to stabilize energy supplies on the one hand, it seeks to compound our dependence upon imported foreign petroleum on the other. Confronted with the rising cost of asphalt, the Senate response has been: Raise taxes and spend whatever it takes. Confronted with a steady escalation in Vehicle Miles Driven, the Senate response has been: Build more roads… and while we’re at it, throw some money at mass transit, too, because it makes us look progressive, but mostly spend the money on roads.

One of the heretical notions advanced by the House of Delegates in the 2006 taxes-and-transportation debate is this: By funding pin-point projects that address specific transportation bottlenecks, Virginia can address traffic congestion more efficiently than by channeling new revenues through the traditional transportation funding formula, which spreads the money all around the state. Maybe, just maybe, Virginia really doesn’t need to raise an additional $108 billion over the next 20 years like the Axis of Taxes says it does.

Giving credence to this view is a report by David Hartgen, a professor at the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, which reader Whitney Duff has brought to my attention. Hartgen argues that it would cost a mere $8.5 billion over the next 20 years to relieve “severe congestion” around the state.

The implication is that Virginia spends money on roads for lots of reasons that have nothing to do with relieving congestion, a fact that you’d never suspect given the way traffic congestion is cited to justify raising taxes by $1 billion a year. But, remarkably, as Hartgen observes, only two of Virginia’s Metropolitan Planning Organizations — Fredericksburg and Harrisonburg — mention congestion relief as a stated goal in their long-range transportation plans.

Hartgen argues that the General Assembly should make traffic congestion relief a major priority in the allocation of construction dollars, just as Atlanta and Texas recently have done. (Atlanta, famed for its sprawling road network, has raised the weight placed on congestion relief from 11 to 70 percent.) To read “talking points” based on Hartgen’s study, click here.

Given the fact that traffic congestion is the cause celebre for raising taxes, one would expect that someone, somewhere, would have conducted some analysis on exactly how Virginia prioritizes its spending for new construction projects. To what extent does Virginia fund congestion-relief projects as opposed to projects that, say, open up new land for development even if there is no immediate demand for those roads? (Does Richmond’s Route 288 ring a bell?) It’s a fundamental question, and it’s reckless to raise taxes without knowing the answer.

Sporting a new look, the venerable Almanac of Virginia Politics: 2006 is now available. The Almanac was originally published by Flora Crater and the Women’s Activist Fund “as a way to empower citizens – especially women and other minorities – realizing that voters need to have concise and comprehensive information on the actions of their representatives in government.” As the editors and publishers advanced in age, they found it difficult to continue putting out the annual volume which focuses on Virginia’s state legislators. Now, the publication is a project of George Mason University. According to George Mason, “Larry Sabato…has called [the Almanac] ‘an enormously useful volume for any election watcher in the Old Dominion.’”

The Almanac’s new editor is Dr. Toni-Michelle Travis, associate professor of government & politics and the director of the African-American Studies program. It is published by the Kendall Hunt Publishing Company which says that the 2006 edition “provides raw data for political analyses of Virginia’s legislators. Data from the 2005 legislative session is combined with the latest results from the November 2005 election, and personal and political information is provided for each legislator. This timely and unique publication provides for those seeking to grasp the components of Virginia’s legislative politics and pertinent information about each legislator, and serves as an essential reference tool.”

With a new home, the 2006 volume is physically larger, has a glossier cover, and includes analysis of the 2005 elections and a synopsis of bills sponsored and passed by each legislator. It also includes new elements, such as ratings of legislators by major interests groups and overlays of state legislative districts with congressional districts. The publication is also physically larger. According to Travis, “It looks different from Flora’s version.” Now that the 2006 edition is out, preparation for the 2007 edition is underway as the General Assembly is still wrapping up its work. Travis says that “I begin to write the next edition so I can discuss key legislation.” The 2006 Almanac can be purchased via the George Mason bookstore.

I need to read Michael Shear’s reporting at the WaPo more consistently. He illuminates a variety of perspectives I haven’t seen covered by Virginia’s other major dailies. Here’s a month-old article he wrote about the on-again, off-again relationship between Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and Virginia’s smart growth movement: “On Road Funding, Kaine Finds Slow-Growth Camp Is No Ally.”

If you want to understand the dynamics of the taxes-and-transportation debate, the article is still worth reading.

Michael Shear at the WaPo adds some interesting perspective to the taxes-and-transportation debate.

For Howell, the spat is like a legislative version of Mad Libs, a children’s game in which sentences have blanks that players fill in with random nouns, verbs and adjectives to create silly stories. Replace “transportation taxes” with “Medicaid” in two years, and the Senate could be pushing for higher taxes once again. Or change it to “pre-kindergarten,” and Kaine could be boxing in the House on the issue of money for education.

Two years ago, when Gov. Mark R. Warner (D) was pushing for higher taxes, House Republicans were told that the increase was a once-in-a-lifetime necessity to avoid a budget crisis. More than 17 agreed and voted with the Senate to increase
taxes.

Now, many of those same people are joining Howell in being offended by the Senate’s belief that the House will always be blamed for these standoffs.

Shear cites the case of Del. S. Chris Jones, R-Suffolk, one of the Republicans who defected in 2004 to pass the Warner tax increase. In an op-ed piece in the Virginian-Pilot, Jones argued that the Kaine and the Senate are flouting decades of tradition: “By placing their tax hikes directly in the budget, despite not having been able to pass those increases through legislation, the Governor and the Senate guaranteed the current standoff.”

Among the delegates who voted with Warner in 2004, at least five others have written similar pieces for their local newspapers, Shear says.

After the House passed a “compromise” budget, deferring the taxes and transportation debate so the business of government can continue without disruption, House Speaker William J. Howell, R-Stafford, released a statement making it clear that House Republicans feel no pressure from their constituents to raise taxes.

It has become very clear that despite the paid radio advertisements, the campaign-style robo-calls to people at home, and the various town hall meetings our new Governor has simply failed to muster public support for either his tax increases or those proposed by the Senate.

Our members have been in their districts for about a month, and they have not found support for the massive tax increases proposed by the Governor and the Senate. For example, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Vince Callahan [R-Fairfax] is the latest of several members who’ve done public opinion polls … to gauge support in their respective districts for the various transportation plans currently being debated.

What Delegates Callahan, Gear, Welch and most of our members are hearing from constituents is their wondering why tax increases are being considered when the Commonwealth is running a surplus of $1.5 billion.

On top of their concerns about higher state taxes, our constituents are expressing real anxiety over skyrocketing homeowners assessments, increasing energy costs, and already high gas prices that are rising, too.

Style Magazine in Richmond has combined book reviews of “Notes from the Sausage Factory” by Barnie Day and Becky Dale and “Adventures in Warnerland” by Steven Sisson — lumping together two works emanating from the blogosphere. The review is short — not exactly New York Times Book Review length — but at least it’s something. To my knowledge, none of the major state newspapers has deemed either book worthy of notice.

There’s one great quote in the review that reminds me how acutely I miss Barnie’s provocations:

“If you can imagine the universe of political commentary in Virginia as the Plains of Serengeti, the columnists, the op-ed folks … are the lions who move the political herds,” Day said in an e-mail. “They pay attention to the yipping, squalling fray jackals sometimes engage in, but they don’t fear them.”

Take pride, Virginians, we are home to 30 of the 1,000 largest publicly traded companies in the United States.

Surprisingly, Richmond is tied with Northern Virginia, with 12 each. (Huzzahs for my home town!) On a per capita basis, Richmond is a real stand-out. Hampton Roads has three Fortune 1000 companies, Smithfield one and Roanoke one. But my sentimental favorite is Abingdon, home to Alpha Natural Resources, a coal mining giant formed only a couple of years ago.

Peruse the list here.

The balance of power in the taxes-and-transportation debate must be shifting in favor of the House of Delegates. What do I base that on? The fact that some Virginia’s editorial writers are so distraught that they’re practically foaming at the mouth.

I’ve already commented upon the Washington Post’s characterization of House Speaker William Howell. (See “William J. Howell: The Face of Evil.”) But those epiteths were almost mild compared to what you can read today in the Roanoke Times.

The Roanoke Times lauds Gov. Timothy M. Kaine for vetoing legislation that would have given Republican legislators power to appoint a majority of the members of the Commonwealth Transportation Board. Sure, it was a raw power grab, and no one in their right mind expected Kaine to sign it. But the only people who seem to have worked themselves into a froth are the editorial writers at the Times. Here is the Times storyline:

“Miffed” that Kaine, a Democrat, won the election, the Republicans, “sore losers” that they are, “vindictively went after Kaine,” despite the Governor’s”genuine gestures” of bipartisanship. (No word from the Times about Kaine’s principled about-face on tax increases.) The ‘Pubs tried to “strip” Kaine’s appointment powers, and they “stepped over the line” in refusing to appoint a former AFL-CIO official to Kaine’s cabinet. They still hope to “wound the governor” and “slap around Virginians” who support tax increases. Every step of the way, the Times characterizes the motives of the House GOP as vindictive or venal.

What’s interesting here is that the Times writer is so over-wrought that he/she seems unable to draw distinctions between the courageous, fiscally responsible, tax-raising Republicans in the Senate and the pandering, short-sighted obstructionist Republicans in the House. But both chambers had to pass the power-stripping legislation in order for it to reach the Governor.

Guys, the next time Gov. Kaine decides to reach across the aisle in a display of bipartisanship, I doubt he’ll be calling on you for help with his speech writing.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has vetoed a bill that would allow drivers to keep loaded guns in their cars and boats without a criminal background check or firearms training. According to Christina Nuckols at the Virginian-Pilot, Kaine said the measure “presents a danger to our law enforcement officers, who risk their lives for Virginians on a daily basis while patrolling our Commonwealth’s roads and highways.”

The Virginia Association of Chiefs of Police opposes the legislation. Executive Director Dana Schrad said the bill would create a confusion by opening a loophole in existing laws requiring concealed weapon permits. “We just felt the safety of police officers was put at too great a risk.”

A gun-rights advocate said the veto won’t protect police because criminals would ignore the law anyway.

If I’m reading this right, if you pack heat and you really, really want to stash a pistol in your glove compartment, you still can — as long as you pass a criminal background check or have firearms training. The only people who could possibly object to this are the radical civil libertarians of the right who, in my book, are almost as loonie as the radical civil libertarians of the left.

Frankly, I’d prefer that the General Assembly focus its attention of addressing the issues that matter to the other 98 percent of the population.

The RTD reported in 05 that Candidate Kaine said he supported the Marriage amendment ‘as written’ that marriage is between one man and one woman only.

Governor Kaine said he will vote against the amendment and encourage others to do so.

A politician ran for public office saying one thing and did something different in office. Shocked, I’m shocked, I say!

So, why did Gov. Kaine wait six days to change his tune on new taxes for transportation? What happened in those six days? Why didn’ t he announce the flip six minutes after he won? Go figure.

Maybe we ought to have dunking pond for politicians. If they get tested as candidates and drown, the voters know they would have been truthful. If the candidates live, the voters know they will lie.

This news in today: Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has signed legislation that updates and simplifies the state’s complex and outdated system of communications taxes. Virginia’s citizens currently pay the nation’s highest rate of combined state and local taxes for their telephone service — averaging 30 percent, more than twice the national average. The new law eliminates four existing communications taxes and replaces them with a low, five-percent rate across the board for all communications services.

Said Verizon President Robert W. Woltz Jr.: “This simplified communications tax system will benefit citizens by overhauling one of the most regressive taxes in Virginia, replacing it with a fair, equitable system that doesn’t discriminate among the various methods competitors use to deliver communications services.”

American cities are coming back strong. The suburbs still maintain an edge when measured by per capita income and the median value of owner-occupied housing. But after decades of relative decline, the 22 cities studied by University of Virginia professors William H. Lucy and David L. Phillips held their own in the 1990s and regained some lost ground in the first half of the 2000s decade.

Lucy and Phillips compared 22 cities with populations of 250,000 or more with surrounding jurisdictions within their Metropolitan Statistical Areas. Drawing upon American Community Survey data, they found that per capita income rose from 86 percent of the MSA average in 2000 to 89 percent by 2004. The median value of owner-occupied housing increased from 83.7 percent of the MSA average to 86.4 percent over the same four-year period.

What’s happening? In a reversal of white flight/middle class flight, affluent households are moving back into the city and rehabilitating the housing stock. At the same time, lower-income households are leaking into surrounding counties and occupying the single-family houses, tiny by today’s standards, built in the 1950s and 1960s.

Lucy and Phillips conclude: “Rearrangement of the income geography of cities and suburbs presents new opportunities and challenges for public policy makers. Alleviation of effects of concentrated poverty and depleted city government treasuries remain daunting challenges. But now, market forces may contribute to reducing these problems rather than compounding them.”

Let me see if I’ve got this straight. According to the Manassas Journal-Messenger, there’s a canopy over the Virginia Railway Express station at Manassas Park — a canopy that’s the same size as those at other VRE stations.

But the City Council of Manassas Park wants a bigger canopy — one big enough to cover the entire train platform.

Because VRE and City Council disagree on whether or not their contract provides for a bigger shelter, City Council is refusing to pay the city’s $25,540 share of the purchase of 50 new VRE rail cars needed to replace expiring leases and aging equipment.

Six other localities along the VRE route have kicked in about $1.25 million for the new rail cars. Manassas Park is the only hold-out. But without the participation of all seven localities, the state of Virginia will not contribute critical matching funds.

Here’s the irony: Without the funds to buy new cars, VRE will have to cut the number of rail cars in service. That means fewer passengers, which means that Manassas Park won’t need that bigger canopy anyway!

Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling sees no need for a broad-based tax increase this year, for transportation or anything else. He believes that making VDOT more efficient and aligning transportation with land use planning will do wonders for Virginia’s ailing road system.

“We just need to exercise some fiscal discipline,” he told a dozen or more bloggers in a conference call arranged by Norm Leahy of One Man’s Trash fame, with technical assistance from the Virginia Institute for Public Policy. “When we’ve got economic growth sufficient to support a 19 percent increase in spending, it’s unfathomable that folks are calling for a tax increase.”

It’s no surprise, then, that Bolling also believes the way out of the General Assembly’s budget gridlock is to set aside contentious transportation-tax issues for the moment and “agree on those areas where agreement can be reached.”

The differences between the House and Senate on the budget are “very small” in every area but transportation, Bolling said. “The differences between the Senate budget and the House budget are … very easily resolved. … Let’s not hold other sections of the budget hostage.”

Tax-hike hardliners in the Senate expect the budget gridlock, which could lead to a government shut down if unresolved by the end of the fiscal year, to panic members of the House into making concessions. Their calculation, the Lt. Governor said, is that “the closer you get to the deadline, members of the House will start peeling off in their opposition to higher taxes.” That won’t happen, he added. “In fact, I see the opposite of that happening.” Based on his conversations with individual senators, he thinks the Senate could accept his preference to set the transportation issue aside for later.

Buttressing that line of argument, Bolling noted, is the fact that the House and Senate aren’t as far apart on the transportation issue as commonly portrayed. Both parties would funnel General Fund budget surpluses to transportation, increase taxes on automobile insurance premiums, and bump up motorist “abuser” fees. “Rather than play brinksmanship with the rest of the budget, let’s agree upon what we can agree upon.”

In the wide-ranging blog conference, Bolling commented on a number of hot issues, from illegal immigration to educational vouchers. Read the take of these other bloggers: Elephant Ears, Too Conservative, Kilo, Nova Townhall, CatHouse Chat, Virginia Virtucon, Spank That Donkey, From On High.