Bacon's Rebellion

The General Assembly is scheduled to wind up this week. Whether it does or not, as budget negotiations go down to the wire, is beyond my ability to foretell. Sadly, I won’t be around for the grand finale. I’ll be cruising through the tropics with the family.

Odds are, the Disney cruise ship will have wireless Internet access, in which case, I may find myself checking in from time to time. But if things are little slow on the Bacon’s Rebellion blog, it’s because I’m snorkling or drinking Margaritas. Here’s a toast to life beyond politics!

A March 6 poll of 1,900 voters by Quinnipiac University, in Hamden, Conn., ranks two Virginia politicians among the Top 10 most popular political leaders in the country. Former Gov. Mark R. Warner ranked 7th, with a rating of 50.7 on a 1-to-100 scale. Sen. George Allen ranked 10th, with a 48.6 rating. Both ranked ahead of President George Bush and Veep Dick Cheney.

Warner should be encouraged that he edged out New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, with a 50.4 rating. That makes him the most popular figure among likely Democratic contenders for the 2008 presidential nomination.

Allen has a lot stiffer competition should he seek the GOP nomination. Former NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani ranked 14 points higher, and Sen. John McCain 12 points higher.

(See more commentary at the Virginia Belle blog.)

The Wall Street Journal has published side-by-side letters from state Sen. John H. Chichester, R-Northumberland, and Peter Ferrara, president of the Virginia Free Enterprise Fund and occasional Bacon’s Rebellion columnist.

Addressing the tax debate in Virginia, both make points to a national audience that they’ve made already to state audiences. I can’t link to the letters oneline, so I’ve typed them into the comments section of this post.

What’s noteworthy here is the level of national attention the tax debate is generating.

Sen. Kenneth W. Stolle, R-Virginia Beach, has introduced a bill commending his colleague Sen. John H. Chichester, R-Northampton, as a “visionary leader of tremendous integrity … admired for his gift of diplomacy; his adroitness, even in times of adversity, at unifying the numerous voices and forces of the legislative body.”

Describing Chichester as having “great respect … for the diverse political convictions of his fellow General Assembly members,” Stolle goes on: “Committed to excellence in state government, John Chichester exemplifies, in his words and in his deeds, the ideals of honesty, responsibility, and a steadfast belief in the value of democracy and the political system.”

The resolution commends Chichester on his 2005 Excellence in State leadership Award by the National Conference of State Legislatures and the State Leadership Foundation.

Read the resolution and pick out your favorite phrases! Here’s mine: “Unifying the numerous voices and forces of the legislative body.”

Update: Turns out there’s more to the story. Jeff Schapiro wrote a piece in today’s Times-Dispatch noting that House Republicans “are now refusing to vote on a tribute to the guy who whupped ’em in the 2004 tax fight.” I don’t know who submitted the resolution in the House, but I’ll bet he (or she) is snickering at the sniping intramural feuding they’re feeding in the Republican Party.

One can hardly blame the House GOP for not wanting to affirm the sycophantic praise in the resolution, including an allusion to Chichester’s role in cramming the 2004 tax increase down their throats. On the other hand, publicly dissing Chichester will only feed the “petty, intransigent House GOP” storyline that seems to be developing. There ought to be a creative solution to the dilemma.

I’m all for slapping tolls on every major bridge in Hampton Roads to pay the bulk of the cost of the Third Crossing.

I hope they don’t screw up the actual crossing plans with something stupid. They should do a rail and truck bridge to 460 on the Southside and new tubes for cars across the Hampton-Norfolk crossing.

I don’t understand why a 22 person commission had to be appointed instead of VDOT collecting the tolls.

Pay attention to see if this commission hires staff and rents offices. Look to see who, and how many, they hire and how much they pay. Might be a good news story for a newspaper.

Road to Ruin reporter Bob Burke has been digging into Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s apparent abandonment of the land use legislation he championed during the fall gubernatorial campaign. He confirms the account provided by Del. Robert Marshall, R-Manassas, and columnist Patrick McSweeney.

Bob did get a response from Kaine spokesman Kevin Hall. Hall’s response: Kaine still backs the measure but regards it as “part of a more comprehensive transportation package. … We are probably more in a posture of [trying to] fight the battles we have a reasonable chance of winning.”

In other words, Kaine is putting all his muscle behind the $1 billion-a-year tax increase — a tax increase he never mentioned during the campaign.

Still unresolved: Whether the Governor caved into pressure from the home builder/real estate interests.

Read Bob’s story here.

Gov. Tim Kaine may be furious that the House GOP nixed his nomination of Daniel LeBlanc to Secretary of Commonwealth, but he has himself to thank: Having broken two major campaign promises relating to transportation, he doesn’t have much credibility when he says that he will protect Virginia’s Right to Work law. (I’ve discussed Kaine’s broken promises over on the Road to Ruin blog.)

In a quote buried deep in a Virginian-Pilot pilot story today, House Majority Leader Del. Morgan Griffith calls Kaine’s credibility into question:

Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, said he did not trust Kaine’s pledge to uphold the right-to-work law. He said Kaine already has broken a campaign pledge not to seek tax increases until he won passage of a constitutional amendment that would protect transportation money from being diverted to other services.

“If he doesn’t keep one promise, how can you expect him to keep a promise to protect the right-to-work law?” Griffith said.

Breaking promises has consequences. Even if the press doesn’t call you on it, the political opposition will. Kaine has some major repair work to do.

The House of Delegates made a major tactical error yesterday in rejecting Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s nomination of Daniel G. LeBlanc, former president of the Virginia AFL-CIO, as Secretary of the Commonwealth. As critical negotiations over transportation funding unfolds, Kaine and Taxes Axis will use the vote to tar House Republicans as intransigent and obstructionist, putting them on the public relations defensive.

We can see the Kaine/Taxes Axis strategy unfolding. The lead of Pamela Stallsmith’s front-page story in the Richmond Times-Dispatch quotes Kaine as decrying the House’s “McCarthy-style politics.” The article continues in that vein for 12 paragraphs. It’s not until the 13th paragraph that the GOP actions are briefly explained: “The vote was partly viewed as payback for perceived partisan threats by Kaine’s Chief of Staff, William H. Leighty, and the governor’s proposed plan to use campaign-like tactics to break the House’s resistance to higher taxes.”

The article proceeds with another 10 paragraphs of denunciations of the House action, and wraps up the story with a mere three paragraphs of quotes from GOP legislators.

Now, if the issue is really important — like whether or not to raise taxes by $1 billion a year — you have no choice but to hang tough. But when the issue is over who oversees the Governor’s patronage machine, LeBlanc’s opposition to the Right to Work law is irrelevant. You might feel good having voted him down, but you’ve given the Dems and the press corps a club to beat you with!

We can already see where things are heading. In an accompanying Times-Dispatch article, Del. Brian J. Moran, D-Alexandria, chairman of the House Democratic caucus, accused Republicans of being “uncompromising with respect to the budget.” We can expect this meme to be picked up and repeated endlessly in the debate to come. The fact that the Governor and Senate have been equally uncompromising doesn’t matter. What matters is that the press can be counted upon to pick up and amplify the accusation — and the House’s rejection of the LeBlanc nomination will be cited as evidence of the charge.

Update: Michael Shear with the Washington Post gives a more balanced account here. So does Warren Fiske at the Virginian-Pilot here. And the political team at the Daily Press here. All articles emphasize how angry Gov. Kaine is — justifiably, because his reaction is legitimate news — but Stallsmith comes across as carrying water for the Governor.

A fascinating column by Alexandria teacher Patrick Welsh appears in today’s USA Today. Maybe the problem with the educational system in the United States today isn’t the schools or the teachers, he suggests, maybe it’s the students!

Drawing upon his experience as a teacher at T.C. Williams High School, Welsh observes that the best students in English class are foreign students. Native-born students, many of them from affluent families, enjoy a huge advantage when studying their native language but they get lower grades on average. The difference: The foreign students study harder.

What many of the American kids I taught did not have was the motivation, self-discipline or work ethic of the foreign-born kids.

A study released in December by University of Pennsylvania researchers Angela Duckworth and Martin Seligman suggests that the reason so many U.S. students are falling short of their intellectual potential” is not “inadequate teachers, boring textbooks and large class sizes” and the rest of the usual litany cited by the so-called reformers — but “their failure to exercise self-discipline.”

Compounding the problem is a widespread parental sense of entitlement. Teachers who hand out low grades are accused of destroying the children’s future.

Nowadays, it’s the kids who have the power. When they don’t do the work and get lower grades, they scream and yell. Parents side with the kids who pressure teachers to lower standards,” says Joel Kaplan, [a] chemistry teacher at T.C. Williams.

The root problem of our educational system may be the prevailing American culture of entitlement and the decline of the work ethic among American students and their parents. Politicians don’t get elected by blaming the shortcomings of the educational system on voters, but the fact is, this is a problem that no amount of money can solve. If we want to address the shortcomings of education in Virginia, we must start with ourselves.

Today’s Daily Press features an article on the York County School Board meeting last night. About 80 folks showed up with 12 speakers and over 500 names on petitions to get York County to stop culturally cleansing their public schools of Christmas.

I was there.

Most schools in York County had normal observances and education about Christmas last December. Some didn’t. Religious and secular symbols, names, songs etc were banned.

York County School Board and subordinate York County School Division do not have a written policy on Christmas. This is on purpose. When the room mothers started complaining in October because they were being told what they couldn’t do in December, they were answered with white noise ambiquity. No one could find a person or policy responsible.

The point for parents last night was simple and clear. School Board – write a policy. We elect you and hold you accountable.

Some on the School Board denied there was a problem. Some said they would look into it. All deferred to the School Superintendent who offered to meet with the parents. That is exactly what the citizens do NOT want.

The Superintendent, Steven Staples – a candidate for supe at Va Beach, will meet with the parents, declare it an isolated incident and all is corrected. But, it won’t be.

Here is what the policy should say – as was presented by a parent last night:

The York County School Board’s “Policy on Christmas in York County School Division” may look like the following. Even if it is wordsmithed differently, it should contain these elements.

December 25th is a legal holiday for the United States of America and the Commonwealth of Virginia called ‘Christmas.”
Christmas is part of the 400 years of Virginia history since the first permanent English settlement in 1607. Christmas is part of our common customs and traditions.

Educating our students about Christmas shall be part of the instruction in every academic year.

Education about Christmas shall include the following:

Secular and religious traditional and historical Christmas symbols and colors

Secular and religious traditional and historical Christmas songs and music.

Historical stories on the role of Christmas in the U.S., Virginia and York County.

The traditional stories of what and why the Christian majority of America and Virginia celebrate at Christmas.

Education about Christmas shall not require the teaching of other cultures, religions, or holidays.

If anyone is interested I can post the court rulings (the closest thing to law since the legislatures at every level ceded their power to the courts) that support each point above.

As one mother said, “We are just the tip of the iceberg.” This isn’t over. If the School Board doesn’t write a policy, the good People of York County may elect a new School Board.

In the Summer of 02, I asked my Virginia Senator, Marty Williams, for the analysis behind the Yes! Campaign to raise our taxes for transportation. I was the Chairman of the Poquoson City Committee and State Central Committee !st Cong. District representative, RPV. Marty’s staff sent me their inch and half book of expensive analysis.

I found the cherries the politicians had picked for sound bytes – like the $100 a year for an average family in the sales tax bite. Of course, the ‘average’ family had 2.3 people or so and an income that was well below the median of most communities in Hampton Roads.

I found the cherries the politicians ignored – like at the end of 20 years of construction delays and billions of dollars there would be substantially more ‘congested’ road miles in Hampton Roads than before all the concrete was poured. And that tolls alone could pay for most of the cost of a Third Crossing.

Yesterday, I got the latest bowl of transportation cherries from Marty. There are two aspects worth more attention. The first is the flagrant con of cherry picking the stats. The second is the issue of the model they tried to use.

First, go to http://www.thomasjeffersoninst.org/main/main.php where Michael Thompson shows the results from his institute. (Is he still running this thing out of his basement office? When we met several years ago he was). Click on ‘to see a powerpoint summary of each of the proposed tax and transportation plans’.

Look at slide 12 – Marty’s plan adds 8405 government jobs in year one and KILLS 5805 private sector jobs in year one. Oddly and magically, then the private sector employment increases by year 4. Marty only shared the last number.

Look at slide 12 – Marty’s plan LOWERS disposable real income and per capita income. Translation – Virginia’s families have less money. Then, the magic happens again and it gets better by year 4.

Keep reading the slides… conversely, the House Plan INCREASES private sector jobs and income from year 1 on. Duh.

Second, this study needs study. It’s called the ‘Virginia’ STAMP Model, but it’s actually other states’ econometric models kinda sorta made to fit for Virginia.

Like all economists the folks in Massachusetts who put this together made assumptions. If you drill down (same url as above) and click on “to see an explanation of the Virginia STAMP Model, along with the formulas, data, and assumptions used in the model when first developed two years ago. None of the formulas or assumptions have changed since that time”, you will note that this model doesn’t include the economic impact of the 04 largest tax increase in Virginia history.

See the assumptions on household taxes.
Look at how it assumes the expenditures for vehichles from a model for the NE is good enough for Virginia. Likewise, the distribution of households used is one for the NE.

This isn’t a macro-economic model for Virginia. It’s a proxy. Someone with econometrician friends at the Heritage Foundation – please share this with them.

I’d like to know the model magic that increases income after 4 years – what drives that – certainly not the tax hike?

Sen. Marty Williams is a gifted politician. Read that in many meanings. But, when it comes to analysis and economics, he should stay with his chosen employer – waste management.

Sen. Marty Williams, R-Newport News, has pulled out the big guns in the Senate’s negotiations with the House of Delegates over transportation funding — he’s detailing how much more pork the Senate plan will bring to the folks back home.

“So much of the debate so far has focused on what the two plans would cost and where the money would come from,” Williams wrote in a news release issued yesterday. “This report by the professional staff of the Senate Finance Committee reveals side-by-side what the two plans would achieve in each region.”

Here’s how much each VDOT district gets over the next two years:

• Bristol: Senate plan, $143 million; House plan, $16 million.
• Culpeper: Senate plan, $107 million; House plan, $14 million.
• Fredericksburg: Senate plan, $119 million; House plan, $16 million.
• Hampton Roads: Senate plan, $325 million; House plan, $222 million.
• Lynchburg: Senate plan, $104 million; House plan, $16 million.
• Northern Virginia: Senate plan, $470 million, House, $268 million.
• Richmond: Senate plan: $219 million; House, $26 million.
• Salem: Senate plan, $182 million; House plan, $19 million.
• Staunton: Senate plan, $116 million; House plan, $15 million.

Here’s what I’d really like know: How much the taxpayers of each district would pay in higher taxes, stacked side by side with the amount of money returned to each district.

Congratulations to Chad Dotson (Commonwealth Conservative) and Waldo Jaquith (Waldo Jaquith), who have been named contributing editors at Campaigns & Elections Magazine. They will write side-by-side columns about the intersection of technology and politics, with an emphasis on the blogosphere.

These two young men certainly deserve the recognition: They published the pioneer blogs of Virginia politics. Indeed, they were the inspiration for the Bacon’s Rebellion blog. I’d still be limited to bi-weekly newsletters if they hadn’t demonstrated what blogs could accomplish at the level of state/local politics.

Here’s what Waldo has to say. And what Chad has to say.

All I ask, guys, is this: Stay true to your roots. Don’t forget the little guys who made you famous!

The Richmond Times-Dispatch editorial page today reminds us of the circumstances in which Gov. Tim Kaine told voters he would not raise taxes:

Resurrected Quote of the Day: Tim Kaine, in response to Jerry Kilgore’s statement that “he’s going to raise your taxes if he’s elected Governor”: “There you go again, Jerry, making stuff up. You’re not fit to be Governor if you make stuff up on this stage.”

Normally, I save Pat McSweeney’s columns for publication in Bacon’s Rebellion, but his most recent report is too important and too timely to sit on. According to McSweeney, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has yanked support for a bill that embodied his winning campaign issue: giving municipalities more power to block rezoning projects that would overwhelm the surrounding transportation system. This story has gone unreported as far as I can tell (in another example of the ongoing failure of the Mainstream Media to cover land use issues).

Here is McSweeney’s account of what happened:

Just last week, Kaine had another opportunity to honor his campaign promise to give localities greater authority to control growth. He was pursuing an amendment that would add his legislative proposal to a House-passed bill dealing with the use of cash proffers for road improvements.

That House bill had been reported by the Senate Local Government Committee on a unanimous vote and had strong support in the full Senate.Kaine abruptly withdrew his support for that tactic after actively pressing forward in that direction for more than a week.

The chief patron of the House-passed bill, who agreed to let Kaine use his bill as a vehicle to keep the governor’s growth proposal alive even at great risk to his own bill, felt let down by Kaine’s change of heart. Slow growth advocates expressed great disappointment upon hearing of the governor’s reversal.

Kaine’s official explanation was that he felt that the amendment might ultimately be rejected by the House of Delegates. Slow-growth advocates were more than willing to press ahead because they consider a recorded vote in the House on this measure a victory in itself.

The real reason for Kaine’s unexpected abandonment of this central element of his growth control strategy may be his desire to appease developers…

I don’t know if Kaine cut a deal with developers or not. I’m open to the possibility that there’s more to the story than McSweeney reports. And I’ll be the first to say that I had problems with Kaine’s campaign proposal, which I thought, if handled improperly, would have make development patterns more dysfunctional, not less. But if McSweeney’s report is accurate, Kaine has some ‘splainin’ to do. First, he broke his promise not to raise taxes until after a constitutional amendment protected transportation funds from budgetary raids. Now, he is betraying his Smart Growth supporters on their core issue.

Kaine may get away with this maneuver in the short run because Virginia’s political reporters have defined the transportation debate as a budgetary issue, all but ignoring the land use dimension, and the editorial writers in the major daily newspapers (save Richmond’s) are salivating for tax increases. But betraying the constituency that gave him his winning edge over Jerry Kilgore — and there is widespread acknowledgement that tapping the Smart Growth sentiment in Northern Virginia’s suburbs put him over the top — will not help Kaine govern in the long run.

Update: James Young at the Skeptical Observor has posted correspondence from Del. Robert Marshall, R-Manassas, who carried Gov. Kaine’s legislation in the House. A Marshall letter to Chris Miller, president of the Piedmont Environmental Council, confirms the basis of McSweeney’s column and, indeed, may have been the basis for it. For some strange reason, Blogger is not accepting a direct link to Young’s article. Cut and paste this URL to your address line: http://skepticalobservor.blogspot.com/2006/03/kaine-ably-abandons-growth-controls.html