Bacon's Rebellion

A reporter from the Augusta Free Press sent me the questions below for an article. No idea what he will write, but here’s my piece.

1. Do you feel that Lee-Jackson Day has gotten the short end of the stick, so to speak, with the split of the holidays in Virginia?

No. Lee-Jackson Day is secondary to Martin Luther King Jr. Day because MLK is a Federal holiday. Federal holidays carry more weight, just like the Federal government does. Folks notice when the Post Office closes.

2. Did you prefer the way it was done until 2000-2001 – with Lee-Jackson Day and MLK Day being noted on the same day?

The combination holiday of King-Lee-Jackson was uniquely Virginian, but it’s history. The combination isn’t coming back. A separate day for MLK answered Black political sensitivities for separate, stand-alone recognition and respect.

3. Is there a stigma attached to celebrating the efforts of Confederate heroes? If so, what can be done to overcome that stigma?

Stigma? Duh.

Send a politician separate invitations to a MLK and a Lee-Jackson celebration on different dates and see what response you get. Elected officials fear anything taiknted ‘Confederate’, especially the Confederate Battle Flag, more than Dracula fears the cross, a wooden stake, a mirror and morning sunlight – combined. Find out how many public schools (out of 134 systems) take off on Lee-Jackson Day. Go to any 100 schools (K-12) and check out how many bulletin boards recognize Lee-Jackson and how many highlight MLK. Do the same for assemblies and guest speakers. Lee and Jackson are part of the Standards of Learning (SOLs), but are ignored as a state holiday because they are politically incorrect.

The three reasons that Lee and Jackson are ignored suggest the answers to fix the problem.

Culture War. The same Liberals who declare War on CHRISTmas can’t stand Lee and Jackson because they served the Confederacy – which equals racism in their paradigm, were devout Christians and heroic warriors. The Liberals who control most of the media and public education simply are following their agenda. Since culture ‘commands’ in a civilization, the winner, Liberal or Conservative, of the U. S. Culture War will predominate in politics, the media and public education. Conservatives have lost the main stream media and government schools for now. Much can be done in public communication, like the decade plus dramatic shift towards pro-life attitudes, if someone has the resources – money.

Historical Ignorance. The History SOLs had to be ‘re-normalized’, dumbed down, because so few schools could pass them, right? When the teachers don’t know history or teach the Liberal trinity of race, class and gender(s) (as my youngest daughters AP History textbook bragged) then Lee and Jackson will not be honored appropriately. Years ago in Arlington, I learned my 4th grade Virginia history from a New York City native, Mrs. Scharf, who cheerfully taught us that Lee and Jackson were heroes indeed. I also learned history from walking the battlefields with my grandfather and father. Keeping alive the oral history at home for Virginians with ancestral ties Lee and Jackson is important. Newer Virginians can learn and share the same common historical heritage by visiting our many Civil War sites – just as they would visit Colonial Williamsburg, Yorktown and Jamestown as part of our common history.

Evolving Culture. Cultures evolve or die. Virginia as part of Southern culture is changing its identity. The culture used to be so powerful that most, even newly arrived, immigrants from the North and foreign lands joined their Virginia neighbors of a few years to take up arms in 1861 against their relatives and absolute strangers. 6 out of 7 Black slaves stayed on their farms, even after the Union Army conquered, and many, slave and free, served the South in war. Today, the power of our culture with many, many more immigrants from the North and foreign lands is less powerful. And it’s profoundly different. Southern culture isn’t about being a sovereign nation. Southern culture isn’t about race any more for the White majority. Southern culture is about Christian identity with Bible reading and believing, as well as absolute, unchanging, truths in the Ten Commandments, Declaration of Independence, and Constitution, extended families, love of land, sense of place, men are men and women are women, honor, personal freedom, more fun-loving than money/work-driven, admiration for the military and willingness to fight.

4. Other thoughts on this issue.

What is right for the future? Not a worship of the past, but pushing the best of the past forward. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is the symbol of victory of the Civil Rights movement. The morally superior idea of racial integration was a victory for all Virginians. Lee and Jackson should be seen as symbols of military genius, devotion to duty, and honorable leadership that motivated unparalleled acts of courage by all kinds of Virginians. Dr. King will get more recognition as a fact of life in a Federally-dominated America. Yet, Lee and Jackson deserve considerable recognition, significantly more than today, for future Virginians to follow their example as heroes. All three heroes need to be carried into the future as part of our Virginia culture. It’s up to the Good People of Virginia to make it so.

Gov. Mark R. Warner may well be remembered in history as the “good government” governor. Arguably, he has done more than any of his predecessors to bring best business practices to Virginia state government — no mean accomplishment when you consider that Virginia was already considered one of the two or three best run states in the country long before Warner came to office.

In his farewell speech to the General Assembly, Warner noted that government operations is a topic he gets “jazzed” about, and he listed a number of accomplishments. (I add my comments in italics.)

• We’ve maintained our triple-A bond rating – one of only six states in the nation to have that sterling credit rating. (Warner did a great job responding to the last recession with timely spending cuts. Too bad he felt he had to raise taxes after the crisis had passed. See previous post.)
• We’ve leveraged the state’s buying power with centralized purchasing – savings more than $95 million in fiscal year 2005 alone. (True. But don’t forget, Warner is building on procurement reform launched under Gov. Jim Gilmore.)
• We’ve improved collection of money owed the state, producing over 110 million more dollars each year. (Kudos!)
• We’re finally managing real estate more like a business would, which could save more than $68 million over the next decade. (More kudos! Under Warner, the state has developed the first-ever comprehensive inventory of its real estate assets and obligations. Now it’s time to take the next step and track real estate utilization — find out how much of that office space is actually being used.)
• We’ve undertaken school efficiency reviews in 9 school divisions, identifying almost $10 million in annual savings – a figure that will grow as more divisions participate. (Kudos. But in a multi billion-dollar budget, it’s only a start.)
• Virginia leads the states in a cutting-edge consolidation of information technology. (Double kudos. This initiative hasn’t saved as much money as hoped, but it has significantly improved the quality and security of the state’s IT infrastructure. Also, giving credit where credit is due, Warner aggressively used public-private partnership legislation that the Gilmore administration had put into place.)
• And for the first time in history, we’ve fully replenished our Rainy Day Fund to its Constitutional maximum of more than a Billion dollars. (Bravo!)

I’ve heard many stories, none of which have made it into print or even onto the blog, of the businesslike attitude that Warner has brought to government. Rest assured, this list of accomplishments is an abbreviated one. The Governor and his team deserve a lot of credit for Virginia’s rating by Governing Magazine as the best run state in the country. Let us hope that Gov.-elect Tim Kaine can maintain that distinction.

Gov. Mark R. Warner will go to his grave insisting, in the face of massive and recurring state budget surpluses, that the 2004 tax increases were needed. He sounded that theme again in his final speech yesterday to the General Assembly:

Two years ago, I came before you to tell you that the fruits of our [budget-cutting] labor had not been enough. Our first-ever six year financial plan showed that we faced a structural imbalance well into the future. It made us an unfit partner to local governments, a fair-weather friend to public education, and a weakening credit risk to Wall Street investors. …

Together, we hammered out our competing visions for the Commonwealth. Together, we achieved our goals of restored fiscal integrity. Together, we developed a fairer and more equitable tax code. Together, we made critical investments in education, public safety, and the core services of government.

Notice how Warner referred to the state’s largest tax increase not as a “tax increase” but as a reform of the tax code — a reform that just happened to yield an additional $1.4 billion in revenue for the biennial budget.

Warner’s justification for the tax increase is interesting. The tax hike is usually portrayed in the press as a prophylactic to ensure that Moody’s, the bond-rating agency, did not reduce Virginia’s coveted AAA bond rating. That argument has always been weak, because state revenues were rebounding ahead of projections at the very time that Gov. Warner was pushing through the tax hike. One could argue that Virginia was already in the clear.

The real reason for the tax hike is this (in the Governor’s words): “Our first-ever six year financial plan showed that we faced a structural imbalance well into the future.” Warner feared that revenue increases would be insufficient to meet Virginia’s long-term budget obligations.

But events have proved him wrong, and very few are willing to call him on it. Notice one word that never appeared in the Governor’s speech: “surplus.” He never once mentioned the recurring and growing budget surpluses — revenues consistently outstripping his six-year forecasts — that have taken place since 2004. The fact is, the growth in Virginia’s budget has been sufficiently robust to pay for all of Warner’s ongoing programs without a tax increase. This has been obscured by the fact that he has found clever ways to spend the surplus on one-shot programs such as university R&D, environmental clean-up and mental health reform.

The biggest failure of the Warner administration was taking that six-year budget forecast seriously enough to act upon it. Rather than waiting to see if events would bear him out, he argued for a pre-emptive tax increase. He got what he asked for, but events didn’t bear him out — his revenue forecasts were far too timid. No one in the General Assembly wants to make an issue of it because, after all, most everyone voted to go along; they share they blame. Besides, politicians are only too happy to spend the money.

Gov. Mark R. Warner gave his swan song to the General Assembly Wednesday, and he sounded the major themes that make it possible for him to leave office with a 70 percent approval rating. The secret to his success is simple: Refusing to allow himself to get sucked into America’s raging culture wars, he has focused steadfastly on core issues of state government. Whether you approve or disapprove of Warner’s record on taxes and spending, you have to give him credit for staying on message with both his rhetoric and his policy initiatives.

I believe together we found that place on the pendulum of public discourse — where most Virginians are. The place I call the Sensible Center. I believe we have been able to set aside some of the conflicts of the past . . . some of the divisiveness of the present . . . and some of the inertia which sometimes paralyzes our public debate. And for a sustained period of time, we have been able to make progress on problems we’d faced for many years.

You can quarrel with his execution if you’d like, as I have on occasion, but his overall vision –of solving problems, increasing government productivity, and creating economic opportunity, especially in Virginia’s hard-luck rural regions — is an undeniable winner.

Other elected officials, pay heed. That’s the winning formula.

This just in from Victoria Cobb, Executive Director, Virginia Family Foundation.

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Information Alert: Senate fails to remove Potts from Chairmanship

Today, the Senate of Virginia failed to remove Senator Russ Potts (R-27, Winchester) as chairman of the Senate Education and Health Committee in a carefully orchestrated vote on the Senate floor.

The Committee on Committees introduced a report to the full Senate assigning members to various committees and recommended that Senator Potts be stripped of his chairmanship but not lose his seat on the committee. The report was rejected on a vote of 20-19. Beside Potts, three Republicans joined all Senate Democrats in voting to keep Potts as chair: Senators John Chichester (R-28, Fredericksburg), Fred Quayle (R-13, Chesapeake) and Charles Hawkins (R-19, Chatham). In what may be a General Assembly first, Senator Fred Quayle voted against himself as the proposed new chairman of Senate Ed and Health. Senator Frank Ruff (R-15, Clarksville) was not present today to vote.

Rumors regarding the fate of Senator Potts have been flying around the capital in recent days, and the sense today was that the outcome of the vote was predetermined and Potts chairmanship was never in doubt.

Should a similar vote take place after newly elected Lt. Governor Bill Bolling takes his seat as President of the Senate, and the vote ends in a tie, Bolling would not have the authority to cast a tie-breaking vote. Senate rules prohibit such a vote on a committee report. It is unclear at this point whether today’s actions will be the final decision on the chairmanship.

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The 2007 election can not come soon enough.

Some commentators suggested that Jerry Kilgore’s harping on the illegal-immigrant issue was no more than an election-year ploy. Now comes the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia. According to Gary Robertson with the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

The council authorized its executive director to voice support in the legislature for admitting illegal immigrants to Virginia’s public institutions of higher education. …

Vice Chairman Bittle W. Porterfield III of Roanoke said illegal immigrants are living openly in Virginia and not much of an effort is being made to remove them. That being the case, Porterfield said, “we have the obligation to educate them.”

Council Chairman Alan Wurtzel of Delaplane said that if illegal immigrants have access to higher education, they can contribute to the economy rather than being a burden to it.

Looks to me like the what-do-we-do-with-illegal-aliens question is an ongoing one, not a campaign stunt. Next question: Do illegals residing in Virginia qualify for in-state tuitions?

Gov. Mark R. Warner and his economic development team are closing out their term on a high note this week. The Virginia Economic Development Partnership has announced eight separate expansions and locations in the first 11 days of January, most of them yesterday. The deals span the state from Loudoun and Suffolk down to Wytheville and Danville. The announcements totaled $172 million in capital investment and 1,040 new jobs.

The biggest was a $105 million investment by Amcor PET Packaging, which will manufacture fillable plastic bottles for the beverage industry in Wytheville. That project will create 144 jobs.

But let it not be forgotten that the greatest wealth creation is still taking place ouside the realm of corporate plant expansions. In just this past week, three companies have raised a total of $152 million in expansion capital: Dulles-based ORBCOMM, $110 million, to upgrade its network of low-orbit satellites; Roanoke-based PixelOptics, $32 million, to complete development of “dynamic focusing” eyeglasses for the far-sighted; and McLean-based Softek Solutions, $10 million, fuel growth for its data migration solutions.

One of the excuses cited for the appointment of Mr. Pierce R. Homer as Secretary of Transportation is that this will insure continuation of the positive improvements that VDOT has shown over the past four years. But what has VDOT accomplished?

The first Secretary of Transportation and the first Commissioner of VDOT appointed by Warner came forward with good ideas but every year for the past four, mobility and access has gotten worse. The agency is still not working to achieve a balance of transport system capacity and settlement pattern travel demand. (See Mobility and Access: A Report Card at db4.dev.baconsrebellion.com 31 Oct 2005)

Because VDOT has never seriously considered achieving a balance between demand and mobility system capacity to serve functional urban areas, they are still stuck on 19th century concepts to provide vehicle mobility. The automobile (cars and trucks) and to some extent trains (commuter rail and “subways”) do not serve well the settlement patterns most favored by the citizens and the market. VDOT (as well as other state DOTs and US DOT) are decades behind the competition on the Pacific Rim and Europe. Can you say PRT?

The bottom line is that traffic congestion continues to grow worse just as it has been for forty years. While citizens are coming to understand that more money without a fundamental change in VDOT strategy (and Fundamental Change in human settlement patterns) will only make congestion worse, there is no sign that those in VDOT are planning to respond to reality. VDOT continues to plan for and build the wrong facilities in the wrong locations.

Well, you say, VDOT improved the percentage of “on-time” and “on-budget” projects. Yes, they have “improved” when measured by the simplistic “performance measures” used by MainStream Media. That is a PR success, not an improvement in mobility or access.

More projects are on time because VDOT has stretched out the contract periods. This allows them to also claim more projects starts. But is taking four or five years to add two lanes to an existing, straight, flat, Interstate within existing right-of-way and no major new structures a step in the right direction? No one is yet using objective criteria for what should be accomplished for the money.

More projects are on budget because current contracts leave out or weakened maintenance-of-traffic-flow provisions. Shutting down one half the capacity of an overloaded Interstate in midday would have been unacceptable a few years ago. We call this form of intentional congestion “personslaughter” in The Shape of the Future. From field observations it would appear that stormwater and sediment control provisions have also been weakened.

VDOT has done a better job of contracting out design work to compensate for loss of senior staff that the Allen administration forced out so it would superficially appear to be “conservative.” Fixing problems caused by the Allen and Gilmore administrations is a good thing but is that real progress?

Recent field work within R=15 in the Virginia portion of the National Capital Subregion indicates that the core problem is not what VDOT did not do in the 80s, 90s and 00s, it is what they did not do inside R=15 in the 60s and 70s. There are thousands of acres of vacant and underutilized land that was bypassed and / or is not being renewed because of lack of access and mobility. This is because there was and is no attempt to create a balance between transport system capacity and settlement pattern traffic generation. It is inside R=15 where a new commitment to improved access and mobility should focus.

Creating a sustainable New Urban Region by evolving Balanced Communities is not on any VDOT screen. The “More-money-for-more-facilities” advocates want roads and rails to open new land and further exacerbate scatteration of urban land uses and this will result in greater immobility and access dysfunction.

The 10-Times savings in total location variable cost (including savings from less Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) and energy consumption) that are possible from functional vs dysfunctional patterns of land use (aka, the creation of Balanced Communities inside the Clear Edge) are still there for the taking if there was an interest in innovation within VDOT.

All we hear about now are ways to mortgage or sell public assets to generate money that will make the problem worse. As we have noted again and again, more money will only exacerbate the problem until there is plan to balance of transport system capacity with the travel demand generated by the settlement pattern.

More money for the wrong facilities in the wrong locations will make congestion worse faster. (See the nine The Shape of the Future columns related to balancing transport and settlement patterns published at https://www.baconsrebellion.com/ between 24 May and 20 September 2004.)

EMR

I was surprised at the reaction to my recent post about the gubernatorial creation of a Motorcycle Advisory Council. Several commenters thought this was a “cool” idea and waxed rhapsodic about motorcycles. There was a discussion about motorcycle gas mileage and noise.

No one picked up on my point that forming this council was contrary to cost cutting and efficiency in government. Maybe I’m just a lousy writer. But maybe people like government programs that cater to their interests, regardless of whether they’re effective and efficient, and regardless of whether they duplicate existing programs. It’s the other guy’s programs that ought to be cut or never started in the first place.

Just to summarize my objections to this council:

1. After boasting of eliminating boards and commissions, here’s a new one of dubious value.

2. The three areas this council is supposed to cover–safety, tourism, and business development–already have state agencies and programs in place. Are they not doing their jobs?

3. Regardless of whether this council is funded or not, somebody has to set up their meetings, print agendas, and buy their lunches. State representatives are taken away from their regular duties to attend and to respond to the “recommendations” this group will make.

4. The suggestion that this council is way for motorcycle enthusiasts to participate in the transportation debate is preposterous. Were they somehow shut out of Gov.-elect Kaine’s town meetings?

5. If a citizen wants to give input to this group, how would he or she do it? The truth is that these kinds of groups are resume-enhancers for the members, not ways for the public to be more engaged in important policy decisions.

I know this little council isn’t going to sink the Commonwealth. I wish it well. Over time, however, the multiplication of these groups adds costs–tourism needs more staff because they’ve got to support the motorcycle council, the motorsposts initiative steering committee, the Southwest Craft Council, and god knows what else. All these groups also dilute accountability from organizations that should be serving the interests of all customer/stakeholder groups.

Now I see that we have a Cost Cutting Caucus blog. I wish them well, too, but I have to wonder if they really have the will to name names and take on sacred cows. I’ve been railing about cost cutting on a nuts and bolts level from this perch for years to no avail. Maybe that’s why the new blog hasn’t invited me to contribute–I’ve battled costs and costs won.

If Republicans wonder why Virginia voters no longer associate the GOP with fiscal conservativism, you need look no farther than a bill submitted by Del. L. Scott Lingamfelter, R-Dale City. A retired Army colonel, Ligamfelter proposes legislation that would exempt federal, state and local government retirees’ pay from state income taxes.

Reports the Manassas Journal-Messenger:

“Lingamfelter, who also represents Quantico and eastern Fauquier, said that many of his constituents and residents are retired government employees. He said Virginia’s income tax on their retirement pay is driving retirees away to live in states that don’t touch their pensions. ‘They believe they are being taxed too much so they move to states that guard their income,’ said Lingamfelter.

A tax relief will help stimulate and sustain the commonwealth’s economy and encourage more people to live in Virginia during their retirement, said Lingamfelter. “They’re going to spend money in your community, and as they spend money they pay sales tax,” he said. “As you create more business you create more jobs.”

How many problems are there with this idea? Let me count the ways.

(1) The tax exemption would cost lots of money. How much? The article doesn’t say — because Ligamfelter probably doesn’t know. I would hazard a guess that the number is in the tens of millions of dollars, possibly the hundreds of millions.

(2) Why privilege government retirees? Why not extend the tax exemption to all retirees? After all, some states have lower state income taxes than Virginia. Indeed, a handful of states have zero state income taxes. A lot of retirees establish residence in Florida as a result. By Ligamfelter’s logic, eliminating the state income tax for all retirees would keep more of them in Virginia.

(3) If we want to make Virginia more attractive to live in, why focus on retirees? Why not focus on working people! They have jobs. They earn wages and salaries. They generate even more in taxes than retirees! If we cut the state income tax, they’ll have a greater incentive to stay in Virginia, too!!

We have too many exemptions in our state income tax. We need to close loopholes, treating everyone the same, and lower the rates for everyone.

I don’t know if Bearing Drift is the first Virginia blog to podcast, but it’s the first that I’ve seen. (If other blogs have podcast, please let me know. I’m happy to give credit where credit is due.)

In the most recent podcast, Bearing Drift blogger Squeaky Wheel interviews Del. Sal Iaquinto (R-84), who won Attorney General-elect Bob McDonnell’s old Virginia Beach district.

In case you haven’t seen it plugged already on Commonwealth Conservative and One Man’s Trash, there’s a new blog that should prove to be worth watching: The Virginia Cost Cutting Caucus blog set up by Del. Chris Saxman, R-Staunton, chairman of the House cost cutting caucus.

The blog creates a forum in which citizens can engage in constructive criticism of Virginia’s state budget. Such public scrutiny would have been impractical only a year ago, but the latest online version of the budget provides greater detail than ever before. The guiding philosophy of the blog in Saxman’s words: “We believe that a more transparent, accountable and competitive government will yield better services at a lower cost to the taxpayers.”

Late last year, linking to the same budget documents, Bacon’s Rebellion urged readers to “Blog the Budget” — to little avail. Perhaps we picked the wrong time of year, right before Christmas. With Saxman behind it, I suspect that the Cost Cutting blog will prove more successful. The Staunton delegate has invited “several people” to contribute to the blog, including Norm Leahy at One Man’s Trash. We wish the new blog the best of luck.

Former Gov. Jim Gilmore has run a thoughtful piece on educational reform in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star. He makes the point that there is only a loose correlation between per-pupil spending in and educational outcomes. In particular, he focuses on the “Standards of Quality,” an arcane funding formula that drives educational spending significantly higher when the standards are rebenchmarked every year.

Virginia could do better, he suggests, if the state replaced the SOQ formula with a simple, per-pupil funding allowance. Citing research by the Herndon-based Claire Booth Luce Policy Institute, Gilmore says that “a $6,000 per pupil amount–and $7,200 for students with limited English proficiency, living in poverty or having learning disabilities, and $11,400 for severely disabled students–would generate more state funds for all but 13 Virginia school systems.”

He continues: “Changes such as this would free local school systems to have more flexibility in providing educational opportunities based upon actual student needs rather than out-of-date mandates that tie the hands of local school boards and administrators.”

Gilmore also champions school choice, proposing changes to the law that would allow the creation of more Governor’s schools, more charter schools and tuition assistance for private schools.

Discussion of these ideas is way overdue in Virginia, a supposedly “conservative” state that allows pitifully little school choice.

OK, policy junkies, there’s a cool new data source online: The “Commonwealth Data Point” maintained by the state Auditor of Public Accounts. This website collects a number of interesting data series and makes them available from a single Web page.

State and local revenues… state and local expenditures… the state budget… population… food stamps… income… workforce… schools… and more. All presented in a common format, covering fiscal years 2003, 2004 and 2005. The goal is to accumulate 10 years worth of data. I’m not sure what the logic was for selecting the particular data series that appear on the page, but are all are potentially useful for anyone studying policy issues in Virginia.

Thanks to Sen. Walter Stosch, R-Henrico, who sponsored the legislation making the data publicly available. Huzzah! Three cheers for transparency in public data!

House Speaker William J. Howell has proposed raising money to fund transportation improvements in Virginia by selling off chunks of the Interstate to private investors who, presumably, would be allowed to recoup their investment by imposing tolls. Howell has not said (at least not in print) how he would invest the proceeds of such sales, but there is no denying that the strategy could raise substantial sums of money. And if anyone in the Virginia press corps would inquire, Howell’s ideas about privatizing Interstates are part of a broader re-thinking of the role of state government in providing transportation solutions.

Personally, I don’t know if I’m comfortable with the idea of privatizing Interstates, but I’m willing to hear the Speaker out. Apparently, Michael Hardy and Jeff Schapiro with the Richmond Times-Dispatch have already written off the idea as a “scheme” — in contrast, say, to raising unspecified taxes by some $1 billion to $4 billion a year to continue the Business As Usual policies that created the transportation crisis in the first place. Here’s how they chacterize the Speaker’s ideas in an article about Gov.-elect Tim Kaine:

Kaine is not keen on such House Republican proposals as flipping highways and other commuter links for quick cash from investors. Speaker William J. Howell, R-Stafford, has suggested such privatization schemes, saying they could generate billions.

“I don’t like the idea of selling assets,” said Kaine. He is, however, favorably inclined — if the deal helps the state — to consider selling income streams from tolls when proceeds are used for transportation projects.” (My boldface.)

Everybody clear on the distinction? Selling highway assets outright amounts to a “scheme” for “flipping” them for “quick cash.” Merely selling the highway income streams for 30 to 50 years — which also would raise up-front cash for the state to spend — is an idea respectable enough to warrant no such invidious characterizations.