Bacon's Rebellion

Criticize Jerry Kilgore all you want for not specifically funding his proposals, but at least he is the candidate of ideas in this election.

His latest idea sounds like a winner to me:

Kilgore plans to reward state agency heads who are fiscally responsible by reinvesting 75 percent of their budget surpluses in the general fund, and allowing for 25 percent of those surpluses to go back to employees as one-time bonuses.

Kilgore says that this type of program will put more money in the General Fund so that it can used for transportation and for more spending on schools.

Now, I’m not sure this will produce enough “savings” to be declared more than a “drop in the bucket” by the likes of Russ Potts and the editorial board tax lobby, but it’s a commonsense, good management approach that right now is totally absent from state government. It is high time sometime declared that the objective isn’t to spend it all and grow the bureaucracy. The objective is to provide quality government services at the lowest possible cost.

As an aside, was this proposal in the can long ago, or was it the result of the apparent rapproachment with George Fitch? Whatever the case, it sounds good to me.

I would hope that it would never happen here. But if a Virginia Governor were to plead “no contest” to misdemeanors involving official duties,” I would hope that he or she would resign immediately.

I would also hope partisans of every stripe would expect nothing less.

The Virginia House of Delegates leadership has just announced its support for two changes to the tax code: (1) a repeal of the death tax, and (2) a back-to-school tax holiday for school-related purchases.

I won’t dwell on repealing the death tax, which has been debated to death already. For the record, I totally support the repeal, and I applaud the House for taking up this cause.

Now, let’s turn our attention to the Back-to-School Tax Holiday. The House leadership notes that a number of states — including North Carolina, West Virginia and Washington, D.C., with Maryland to kick in next year — provide a tax-free shopping holiday shortly before the opening of school. “The ‘holidays’ are popular with consumers, educators, and businesses,” notes the prepared statement released this afternoon, “as they spur purchases of necessary educational supplies and clothing at an overall savings to consumers.”

Well, as mama used to tell me, just because someone else is jumping off the bridge, does that mean you should, too? A bad idea is a bad idea, even if adopted by Tarheels and Mountaineers. Virginia’s tax code is riddled with far too many loopholes already. Back in 2003, the Warner administration estimated that tax loopholes drained $600 million a year from the treasury, which it blamed on Virginia’s revenue shortfall at the time. (See the list.) Warner dropped the idea of eliminating the loopholes in favor of his “tax restructuring” plan, but that doesn’t mean we should continue boring holes in our tax base. We should be aiming for a simpler, flatter tax code, not a more complex one that favors legislators’ pet constituencies.

On a barf-bag scale of one to five (with five representing maximum pukiness), this rates at least a four.

This just came in from Kilgore campaign headquarters:

Ensuring Cooperation with the Federal Government on the Enforcement of Immigration Laws. As Governor, Jerry Kilgore will sign an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security, Immigrant and Customs Enforcement to designate 50 state troopers to be specially trained for the purpose of having expanded immigration enforcement capabilities to arrest undocumented individuals.

This directly addresses the issue raised in our previous blog post regarding the role of the Virginia State Police in enforcing federal immigration laws. Kilgore will pursue more aggressive state enforcement of the laws.

It’ll be interesting to see how Kaine and Potts respond. I sense that this issue could get some traction.

The Kilgore campaign has issued a statement on the Town of Herndon’s decision to spend $175,000 in local funds to support a location for day laborers, many of them illegal aliens, to gather. The statement makes it crystal clear that Kilgore’s problem isn’t with immigrants, it’s with illegal immigrants.

“Legal immigration made this country what it is today and we honor those who have followed the example of other generations by becoming hard-working, law-abiding citizens who contribute daily to our uniquely American way of life. …

“When we begin to use public resources to reward and encourage illegal behavior, we demean those who have followed the rules and entice others to continue to flaunt our laws. I do not believe it is too much to ask that people obey the laws of our society before they attempt to take advantage of what our society has to offer. Were the day labor centers under consideration equipped with a mechanism to verify that taxpayer dollars are not subsidizing illegal behavior, I would support them. …

“As Governor, I would support legislation that clarifies Virginia law to say that those who are illegally present are not eligible for public benefits, including the expenditure of taxpayer money for services such as day labor centers.”

Other than the fact that the statement refers to”others who continue to flaunt our laws” when he means “flout” our laws, I have no problem with this statement.

Still, I recognize that this is not a cut-and-dried issue. WRVA radio interviewed a Herndon town councilman this morning who described the nuisance created by scores of day laborers loitering around the 7/11. Town officials don’t like the idea of catering to illegal aliens either. But they don’t know what else to do. They have asked federal Immigration and Naturalization officials to crack down on the gathering, only to be told that, with the war on terror and all, the INS lacks the resources to do so. Herndon officials asked if they could be deputized to enforce federal law. The answer: No.

Finally, the councilman noted, the Virginia State Police has declined to apply for permission to be deputized, as police in other states have done. That sounds like an issue worth following up. Why not? And whose decision was it not to seek that permission?

Is there no hope for curbing out-of-control Medicaid spending in Virginia without short-changing the poorest and most helpless members of our society? An experiment in Colorado with Consumer-Directed Attendant Support suggests that it is possible to save money and improve the quality of care for the severely disabled.

As reported in today’s Wall Street Journal op-ed page, the program allows patients to bypass the usual provider agencies and hire their own health aides. Half of any monthly savings goes into a personal account for approved purchases to advance the disabled person’s independence (such as voice-activated phones). In the first two years of the pilot program, average monthly spending was 21 percent under budget, while instances of abandonment, in which care givers failed to show up as scheduled, dropped to almost zero. As a pyschological benefit, Colorado Medicaid recipients felt more in control of their own health.

South Carolina, Flordia, Vermont and Arkansas are all looking at similar reforms. There was no word in the article about Virginia.

The Washington Post reports that a group of former Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce Chairmen are urging that Russ Potts be included in the Chamber debate on September 13th.

Michael G. Anzilotti, one of the former chairmen who helped organize the writing of the letter, said some of the region’s business executives are dismayed by what they see as inadequate transportation proposals by Kaine and Kilgore.

Memo to Mr. Anzilotti: at least both Kaine and Kilgore have transportation proposals. Right now Russ Potts has only promised one sometime after Labor Day.

A controversy is brewing over the annual celebration of “Dixie Days” in suburban Hanover County just north of Richmond. According to the Washington Times, an 18-member advisory panel has advised that:

“Dixie Days” is “problematic” and … calling a Civil War commemoration by that name “tends to represent the past.” If “Dixie” remains, the county schools shouldn’t promote or endorse it. … Some residents, county officials say, find “Dixie Days” offensive and a symbol of slavery and racism. [Said Ms. Jamelle Wilson, a member of the advisory panel:} “The Hanover County community is changing rapidly with many newcomers that may be offended by the name.”

… Grayson Jennings, commander of the Cold Harbor Guards Camp division of the Sons of Confederate Veterans of Virginia, would rather hold the commemoration on private property or even outside Hanover County, than change the name from Dixie Days. “It’s our event. We can call it what we want,” Mr. Jennings says. “This is our heritage. We are not changing the name.”

A bad day at work today was wiped away when I got home and found my copy of Notes from the sausage factory in the mail. Notes is the just-published anthology of essays on Virginia politics co-edited by Barnie Day and Becky Dale.

The book looks great. I know that it has been Barnie’s labor of love for quite some time. It was Barnie who pounded the pavement, worked the phones, the shot the emails to snag the contributors and keep them on deadline. He and Becky can be justly proud of its look and contents. One thing I didn’t expect was the photo section–Del. Bob Marshall (R-Manassas) behind the camera and Barnie writing the captions. Strange bedfellows, indeed!

I’m jumping around reading the essays, but it’s all good. You can get your copy from the exclusive distributor: Bacon’s Rebellion.

The Kilgore Camp is circulating another media poll, this one sponsored by WSLS in Roanoke, showing a 5 point lead. This one from Survey USA comes with the crosstabs, and they are instructive. In the firm’s own summary notes that the last survey with the same methodology showed a 10 point gap so Kaine has picked up a bit. It shows Kilgore with slightly less than the 60 percent of the white vote that most observers consider a bellweather for Republicans in Virginia elections, and it shows Kaine with a slight lead among self-described independents. Potts has the same 3 percent that other polls have shown, but oddly this one also gives respondents a fourth choice of “other” when there will be just three names on the ballot. By election day you’ve got to think Potts will be “other.” Looks like fodder for both camps to stuff in their artillery.

“The peculiar population of that suburb were gathered on the sidewalk; bold, dirty-looking women, who had evidently not been improved by four years of military association; dirtier, if possible, children; and here and there were skulking scoundrelly-looking men…hard at it, pillaging the burning city.”

From ‘To Appomattox–Nine April Days, 1865’ by Burke Davis, Eastern Acorn Press, 1959, 433 pgs., on the fall of Richmond.

According to this Roanoke Times editorial, “If Virginia’s next governor gets it wrong on transportation, people will suffer.” The transportation plans of Tim Kaine and Jerry Kilgore “are as inspiring as sitting in traffic and choking on fumes during a hot August day.”

A transportation plan that will satisfy the Times is actually pretty simple–in fact, it sounds suspiciously like the outlines of the after Labor Day promised Russ Potts plan. Just raise the gasoline tax, “develop and stick to a unified plan to combat the diversified needs across the state,” and, most importantly, stop this talk of regional taxing authorities and regional referendums. Regions can “weigh in” on their needs and offer possible solutions, but anything more than that is off the table. Oh, and throw some “intermodal solutions” in there, too.

This is the ultimate straight talk plan, not an attempt to “appease” voters like the exhaust sniffing Kaine and Kilgore plans. A plan to develop a plan and stick to the plan is just the plan Virginia’s transportation system needs to avoid needless suffering.

OK, ye readers of tea leaves, ponder this: The Kilgore campaign has issued a press release noting that Jerry Kilgore will take “a Warrenton Main Street tour” today. He will be joined by three town councilmen and Patricia Fitch, wife of Mayor George Fitch, whom Kilgore vanquished in the contest for the Republican gubernatorial nomination. There is no mention of Fitch himself participating in the tour.

Surely, this event must have some significance; the Kilgore campaign would not have issued a press release about a routine campaign stop. But the Kilgore crew offers no explanation. What could it mean?

For the record, the Blue Dog is dovetailing Barnie Day’s earlier post.

I’m assuming the ‘Much Ado’ Potts-Wilder summit at Richmond City Hall took place this morning between Russ Potts campaign manager and the Mayor’s policy advisor.

However, Paul Goldman told the Blue Dog, he has also held meetings with Tim Kaine and Jerry Kilgore’s campaign staff.

“There’s no reason why the Virginia Gubernatorial candidates can’t support these issues,” said Paul Goldman.

The list of the 10-urban issues, per policy wonk Goldman…

1) Support legislation allowing Mayors to require that agencies like the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority to use the City Attorney’s office for all legal work. Right now, state law allows these independent agencies to choose whether to use the City Attorney [and it would be free to them!] or hire outside legal counsel, which the RRHA does, for a whopping 1 million dollar a year last year! [It was 1.5 million two or so years ago!]. Thus, this state law change would cost the state NOTHING.

2) Support legislation that requires approval by voters in a referendum before the City Council can pass a new tax, or raise an existing tax, for the purpose of dedicating these new public tax dollars to benefit a private entity.

3) Support legislation expanding the definition of a “persistently dangerous school” under the No Child Left Behind law so that parents in such schools can have more options for their children and so that the school system will know that if such schools are not improved, then parents can take their kids out and send them to another city school.

4) Support legislation to make it easier for cities like Richmond to use existing state laws such as the one promoting public/private sector cooperation sponsored by Henrico Senator Walter Stosch, the leader in this area, to get a desperately needed new City Jail.

5) Support legislation establishing a pilot state/local program in certain cities with the highest Virginia murder rates, to help booster the effort of local police, something that Richmond Delegate Frank Hall has suggested.

6) Support legislation, similar to the current state law sponsored by Newport News Senator Marty Williams, that forbids a lame-duck City Council from giving lucrative golden parachutes to certain top city officials as was done last year in Richmond when a lame-duck City Council gave city manager Calvin Jamison a $170000 golden parachute.

7) Support legislation that gives localities more power to deal with unruly behavior by public school students and to hold parents or guardians accountable for the disruptive public school behavior by these students.

8) Support legislation requiring everyone sent to prison for a drug crime to take periodic drug tests for 18 months after release from prison as this will help them stay off drugs, encourage them to get jobs, be productive members of society and thus a new law would not just fight crime but also serve as a rehabilitation measure.

9) Support legislation giving a refundable tax credit to low and moderate-income families to offset the increase in their taxes passed last year.

10) Support legislation giving localities incentives to replace old-style public housing projects with newer and more modern approaches to developing such housing projects.

~ the blue dog

For those who are following the political hackspersonship that is being fomented around the Supreme Court’s Kelo v New London decision: Today’s WaPo has a front page story and a double truck jump spread on what is happening in Southeast Federal District in response to the baseball stadium plan.

Actually there are three points to be made:

One: It is a crime that the stadium is going forward with little apparent conceptual planning to create a Balanced Community in the area between the Anacostia and the Southeast Freeway nor is there any reported acknowledgment of the National Capital Planning Commissions Year 2050 Plan to make South Capital Street into an new monumental corridor with, perhaps a great setting for a relocated Supreme Court complex.

Second: The front page picture of the two story Star Market/open air drug market which is now next to two new 14 story buildings is exactly the sort of problem (if there were a well considered, comprehensive plan) that would be helped by the majority opinion in Kelo and wiped out the knee jerk pandering to erect “safeguards.” See our post of 23 June on this Blog titled New London Hotel Panic.

Third: All that new development and all those new “private property rights/property value” would not exist unless the public was investing/coordinating half a billion dollars in infrastructure and facilities. That reality is omitted in all the discussions of “property rights.”

EMR