Bacon's Rebellion

The third meeting of the Senate’s START committee was handicapped by having to follow 24 hours of the Senate Finance Committee’s annual retreat at the Radisson on the Hampton waterfront. The senators and many observers were pretty wonked and zonked out by 1 p.m. Friday when the joint senator and citizen panel gathered, and it started bleeding senators almost immediately. Here’s the take from the Daily Press.

There were no observers from the House, which totally ignored transportation during it’s Appropriations Committee retreat earlier last week in Loudoun County. They brought the committee to Lansdowne in heart of commuter hell and within a stone’s throw of classic public-private projects and left transportation off the agenda for the second year in a row. A reporter who had been there told me the excuse was: tranportation isn’t a General Fund program. (I thought that was Chichester’s position.)

But there were two key guests at START from Governor-elect Kaine’s transition staff, Larry Roberts and Brian Shepherd. Both said nothing and kept admirable poker faces during the discussion (when they didn’t rush out to take cell calls), but they were there until the end.

What they listened to was a detailed discussion of a document on “Issues and Principles for Resolution.” It was like a diplomatic meeting where first you set the agenda, but just by setting the agenda you make key decisions. The document was created by facilitator Mark Rubin, who conducted phone interviews with all the group members and compiled the consensus. (Note to Bacon: Read the sections on land use and VDOT reform closely.) He must have done a good job because there wasn’t much debate.

But there was some. They struck the income tax off the list. Tim Robertson from Virginia Beach, son of the evangelist and a major Hampton Roads business leader, stressed how many voters do expect some of the surplus funds to be used and may balk if they are not. Former State Senator Wiley Mitchell probably stirred up a lobbying storm with his comments about eliminating sales tax exemptions (expect more dark suits at the next meeting.)

You can read the “Issues and Principles” document before the changes adopted Friday at the Senate Finance website. As before, not all Windows-based software can access it.

You can find the presentations for the whole Senate Finance Committee retreat here. Those of you who usually prefer the House’s point of view on issues should take the time to download and read these reports (if you can tear yourself away from the Ken and Phil Saga.) The briefing book that senators get out of this meeting gives them quite an advantage — it is solid gold.

What if the state gas tax was tied to the dollar, not to the gallon? I’ve heard that this is a proposal being considered for introduction in the 2006 General Assembly.

The gas tax is currently 17.5 cents on the gallon. If it was tied to the dollar, it would roughly be a wash at 9% if gas was around $2/gallon retail price. It’s a confusing enough change, though, that it would tie tax increase and anti-tax advocates in knots arguing when and if taxes had been increased. When gas prices increased, it would hit hardest, the opposite of what we presume the average consumer would want. Still, it could be part of some grand compromise on a transportation fund lockbox.

As a practical matter, though, I wonder if it would be doable without significant investment by gasoline outlets. They have some clout with the General Assembly. It’s been a while since I worked with petroleum dispensing equipment–could current dispensing equipment be easily modified to calculate the change? Posted gas prices would look lower than they do currently because they couldn’t include the tax.

If anyone knows anything about this idea or the practicality of it, I’d hope they hit the comments section.

The SBE is still at it, with their latest AG update minutes ago, at 4:47. McDonnell’s lead remains unchanged at 345, but a write-in vote was discovered, raising the total of write-ins from 1800 to 1801.

Count on me to keep you abreast of the latest vote swings and on the comments section for news of possible skullduggery (or is it just innocent reporting?).

The SBE has updated the AG vote totals twice today, resulting in a Bob McDonnell lead of 345 votes over Creigh Deeds as of 12:42. For those of you scoring at home, that’s a four vote net pick-up for Mr. McDonnell since yesterday afternoon.

Since I noted the large number of write-in votes in this race early this week, the write-in totals have risen from 1500 to 1800. Perhaps “none of the above” should be offered transition office space, too.

The Virginia gubernatorial race continues to reveberate, used by pundits far and wide to prove or illustrate their points.

The latest is Michael Kinsley, late of “Crossfire,” Slate, the LA Times, and other assorted outlets. Kinsley is great at exposing the absurdity of some political positions, most famously for declaring a “gaffe” to be when a politician “tells the truth.” Today, in his Washington Post column, he takes on the so-called abortion debate in this country, citing the Virginia gubernatorial candidates:

What passes for an abortion debate is a jewel of the political hack’s art: a big issue that is exploited without being discussed. In the Virginia governor’s race this year, both candidates said they were morally opposed to abortion, and both accused the other of falsely accusing him of intending to act on this moral belief, which both of them denied. And both of them, in this last particular, were probably telling the truth.

Newspaper prints editorial. Readers react. Newspaper prints a sample of the reactions in their letters to the editor section. Process starts over.

At the Daily Press, however, some respondents reflect views so noxious that the editorial board can’t just print them and let go.

Grover Norquist, President of Americans for Tax Reform and dabbler in Virginia politics, is one who apparently holds views so noxious that they cannot be left unanswered.

Today, the DP printed a response from Norquist to their editorial of November 12th. But they also printed an editorial criticizing Norquist’s views as expressed in the letter.

I hold no brief for Grover Norquist (I love that cliche; I don’t know as I have ever “held” a “brief” for anybody). However, I find it a sign of almost pathological intolerance toward cutting taxes that the DP editorialists find it necessary to slam Norquist’s response on the same day it appears. Do they have so much contempt for their readers that they can’t let them decide for themselves between two opposing views?

Earlier this week, I received an email message from Ken Hutcheson, Jerry Kilgore’s campaign manager (see here). Hutch’s diatribe was in response to my column, “Winning On Principles,” that was published in Bacons Rebellion this week.

Hutch’s email vent speaks for itself. Nonetheless, I thought that I should give this young lad some sage advice, lest he finds himself unemployable even by the RINOs. It’s too bad that Hutch didn’t have a meltdown earlier in the campaign cycle; perhaps, Jerry Kilgore would have then listened to those of us who repeatedly asked him to put some mature handlers at the helm of the campaign.

Dear Ken:

Thank you so much for your nice and thoughtful message.

Your message proved exactly what a number of conservatives said all along about you and the Kilgore campaign: You simply don’t posses the maturity or political acumen to head any campaign, never mind a statewide initiative. Perhaps, your message to me has finally opened Jerry’s eyes…

You ask who cares about my columns. Well, the answer is obvious—you do! My writings couldn’t generate so much passion in anyone if they are irrelevant.

If you haven’t figured out by now that email messages are not the way to vent anger, then you are more hopeless than I originally thought. Let me spell it out for you: Email messages can be easily circulated! In the future I recommend you don’t use emails to air your diatribes. If you continue, even your RINO patrons may have second thoughts about engaging your services again.

________________________
Phillip Rodokanakis
President
Virginia Club for Growth
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.virginiaclubforgrowth.org

Bob McDonnell has reversed Creigh Deeds’ inexorable chipping away at his lead in the AG’s race.

McDonnell has gained one vote since the last SBE update. He now leads by 351 votes.

Update: As noted by a commentor, SBE has updated again and Deeds has restarted his pick-up. McDonnell now only leads by 341 votes.

Giving some heft to the word “trust” in Virginia’s “Transportation Trust Fund” is back on the front burner with Governor-elect Kaine’s transportation town meetings. Here is a column I wrote for Bacon’s Rebellion about a year ago on the topic for a bit of background.

It became a high priority for many in the business community after the 2002 failed referendum votes, and as the Virginia Chamber’s lobbyist I spent three sessions working with others to try to coax it out of Senate Finance. (We got it out of Senate Privileges and Elections once, for a couple of glorious hours, then it was re-referred to Finance to die.) I think I stood up once or twice in Finance to speak for Kaine’s amendment version (and if I didn’t, let’s tell him I did!) But there was never any support from the Warner Administration. Now there will be from the Kaine Administration (as there would have been from a Kilgore Administration, I’m sure.)

There are problems with this idea. The financial community hates to see states substantially earmark funds, reducing flexibility in hard times. And there can be too many earmarks — but Virginia is hardly there. We have constitutional directives that lottery profits go to education and that criminal fines go to the Literary Fund. The “Rainy-Day” Revenue Reserve is constitutional, meaning the General Assembly can’t override it. This would be the largest protected pot of money, but if you read the previous proposals, there are safety valves built in.

Good to see our intrepid (Update: Oops! See Steve’s comment) Bacon’s Rebellion colleague Steve Haner providing Chris Jenkins of the Washington Post some good quote at last night’s Gov-elect Kaine transportation meeting in Roanoke:

“He’s going to hear more songs than a Broadway musical,” said Steve Haner, the lobbyist for the Virginia Chamber of Commerce and a spokesman for the advocacy group Virginians for Better Transportation. “There remains a lot of debate, a lot of discussion and a lot of disagreement on these things, and I suspect he will get them all on this issue.”

“He isn’t giving any indication of which way he wants to go on any of this,” Haner added. “I think it’s going to be wide open. I’m not expecting any deep insights.”

I may be in the minority here, but I am still baffled why we had an election campaign with transportation as a top issue. Why didn’t Kilgore and Potts think to just promise statewide meetings, instead of promising to complete specific projects or raise taxes? The genius of Kaine is becoming apparent.

Fellow bloggers, Bacon’s Rebellion has activated the “back links” feature of the Blogger software, which alerts readers to other blogs that have linked to a particular post. The idea, as Blogger explains, is to expand the comment feature so that related discussions on other sites can be included along with the regular comments on a post. If the other Virginia political blogs activate their back links, we can all interconnect with each other, creating a richer experience for our readers.

It sounds good in theory. But, then, the concept is quite new to me. If anyone knows of a good reason to de-activate the back links feature, please let me know!

Michael Shear reported in today’s Washington Post that Governor-elect Tim Kaine has asked Governor Warner’s Chief of Staff, William H. Leighty to stay on and that Leighty has accepted.

I’m a little surprised, just because Chief of Staff is a job that has a very high burn-out factor. Leighty apparently has a high tolerance for heat!

From my less-than-lofty perch in state government, I can’t say that I’ve noticed much that’s emanated from the Chief of Staff’s office. I’ve been disappointed, after what seemed like a strong start to the Warner Administration, at the seeming lack of on-going initiatives to cut costs, foster innovation, or encourage cooperation across agencies. Of course, a lot of stuff doesn’t filter down to my level.

From the same perch, however, I’ve seen Mr. Leighty make his boss look good, even great at times, and keep his boss away from any hint of trouble within state government. There is no higher accomplishment for a Chief of Staff, so I’d say Governor-elect Kaine has made an excellent choice and that Leighty is performing a tremendous public service by agreeing to remain.

Creigh Deeds has only picked up 7 votes in the last 23 hours. McDonnell’s lead in the State Board of Elections AG count stands at 350 as of 11:17 today.

Yesterday’s Richmond Times-Dispatch carried a series of articles on the aging population of Virginia, including this alarm-sounding Betty Booker report.

Today’s Washington Post offers economics pundit Robert J. Samuelson’s takedown of the AARP approach to policies on aging.

If a party or candidate wants to get out ahead of the next great domestic challenge, it’s policy area just waiting for them, as is the ambush that will be launched by the AARP and their dedicated voters.

As tempting as it is to focus on GOP bloodletting and email etiquette, I’m going to be the “bad guy” and write about boring policy stuff.

Yesterday brought headline news of state/Northrop Grumman IT outsourcing details. To the extent that there’s conventional wisdom on this massive change, everyone except counties like Wise that have lost out on a facility seem to be dazzled by the scope of the deal, the promised savings to the state, and the projected benefit to the counties that got a piece of the action.

Here’s a slightly contrarian view from an e-zine that apparently specializes in news about outsourcing, with this little snippet of hypothetical number-crunching being the gist:

The average taxpayer in this state pays our imaginary defense contractor $2.50 a year but, if you calculate the net effect of the new payroll money, it works out to only about $2.13 per taxpayer per year. Net-net, the taxpayer is giving the defense company $.37 cents a year.

I would hope that General Assembly would look closely at this deal before ratifying it, not because I necessarily think it’s a bad thing, but just because any expenditure and change this large ought to be able to stand up to scrutiny.

I will repeat my reaction to this deal: Here’s Virginia, named the best managed state in the nation, led by a Governor whose creation of the Virginia Information Technologies Agency was a large reason why Virginia was been so recognized, suddenly outsourcing to private industry the very organization deemed so praiseworthy. Not only that, but the idea to oursource didn’t even come from the state, it came from a proposal thrown over the transom. I like Virginia being an innovator, but we could possibly end up regretting not seeing the concept proven in another state first.