Bacon's Rebellion

The Fredericksburg Free-Lance Star offers a worthy quote of the week:

On discovering the acquisition of two trolleys (total price $320,000) instead of two buses ($120,000) would actually cost the Town of Culpeper $3,000 less because support would come from a different federal pot, Councilman Mike Olinger quipped, “If the federal government is going to waste [the money], I want them to waste it in our county.”

The U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled Wednesday that Virginia’s requirement that students recite the Pledge of Allegiance everyday in the classroom is constitutional. As reported in The Daily Press, “Virginia Attorney General Judith W. Jagdmann issued a press release Wednesday stating that the 4th Circuit ruled the pledge is not a religious exercise, “but a patriotic one,” and therefore does not violate the establishment clause.

Edward R. Myers, a 46-year-old, Mennonite software engineer from Northern Virginia, had filed the suit, objecting to schools “yoking patriotism and religion” by promoting what he described as a “God and Country civil religion.”

Fourth Circuit Appeals Court Judge Karen Williams wrote: “Undoubtedly, the pledge contains a religious phrase, and it is demeaning to persons of any faith to assert that the words `under God’ contain no religious significance. The inclusion of those two words, however, does not alter the nature of the pledge as a patriotic activity.”

I’m sorry, but I just don’t see how people get so exercised over this. If members of the mainstream culture want to recit the Pledge of Allegiance at school, with “under God” in the prayer, let them. If atheists want to skip over “under God” during the recital, let them. If Hate-America-Firsters want to skip over “with liberty and justice for all,” or sit out the entire recital, let them. Why it’s necessary to file lawsuits, with the consequence that judges issue rulings with “winners” and “losers,” is beyond me. There’s got to be a way where everyone’s point of view can be tolerated.

Before Tim Kaine formally ran for governor, he made a point of visiting every school district in Virginia — and there’s a lot of them — to learn as much as he could about Virginia’s K-12 system and how to improve it. There was a time when he seemed determined to bring fresh thinking to the problem. But those days are over. The bottom line of the Kaine education plan: Spend mo’ money. Lots mo’ money…. Just open your wallets wide.

The Kaine campaign’s latest e-mail blast lists a number of initiatives (which I would link to, but it’s not even on the website yet):

• Make “high-quality pre-K available to all Virginian four-year-olds” on the grounds that 90 percent of brain development happens before age five and 35 percent of children are not ready to learn when they enter kindergarten. Kaine says there is a 17-to-one return on investment for pre-K. Pardon my skepticism. Show me the data.
• “Fully fund” public schools. The Kaine press release alludes to the “historic $1.5 billion investment” in public schools made possible by the Warner administration’s 2004 tax increases. That was designed to meet Virginia’s Standards of Quality, but presumably, that’s not enough. Kaine doesn’t explain why it’s not enough, and he doesn’t say how much more money he’s talking about. He just makes it sound like an open-ended commitment.
• Raise $1 million in private funds for scholarships for students who want to pursue careers that serve the public good. This is a feel-good initiative that no one can argue with, but it has little more than symbolic value.
• “Implement regular and meaningful teacher evaluations” to improve children’s classroom experience. Another meaningless gesture — unless it’s backed up with the ability to reward teachers fo rexcellence or punish incompetence.
• Increase access to Governor’s Schools and AP classes. Tell me how much it’s going to cost.

Once more, folks, we have a Business As Usual approach to education that does nothing but concoct new and creative ways to throw more money at the problem. No restructuring. No re-engineering. No rethinking pedagogy. No experimentation. No extra flexibility. No holding anyone accountable. No demands on teachers or school administrators. Just demands on taxpayers. Just mo’ money.

It looks like the Virginia Education Association wrote Kaine’s education plank for him. What a disappointment…. And what a tactical mistake. Jerry Kilgore has been painting Kaine as a traditional “tax-and-spend liberal.” Yesterday, that sounded like a retread soundbite, too unoriginal to bother posting on this blog. Today, it sounds frighteningly accurate.

Jim makes some good points re the work of Philip Shucet the former VDOT commissioner who now works for a private developmer.

However, before we move to canonize Shucet let us recall that:

The role of government is to provide service, not to cut costs.

Cutting costs are fine but how about measures of performance?

During Shucet’s term VMT continued to grow faster than drivers, cars or population. Congestion got worse every year in every region of the state.

There is still not one major VDOT project that is designed to improve the pattern and density of land use.

There is also not one major project that is designed to serve the exiting land use, zoned land use and planned land use in the corridor. See “Anatomy of a Bottleneck” at db4.dev.baconsrebellion.com

That bottleneck summary was first written in 2000 and rewritten in 2003. We just looked it over and the only up date is that there is now some money now available to do some of the roadway and safety work near and east of the Gainesville Interchange on I-66. However, there is also more of the formerly “zoned and planned land uses” now under development, construction and occupied than the new capacity can accommodate.

There may be some sour grapes but there is more to what Ken Anderson says than Shucet admits in his response that Jim posted.

Let us keep in mind that it is easier to cut back when you are building less. We have not noted Virginia getting any awards for the quality of maintenance which is what a lot of those District office staff do. In the Culpeper and “Northern Virginia” Districts we have seen few sign so improvement. Is not the terrible condition of the existing system one of the reasons we need to raise Billions?

When VDOT’s own forces took months to lengthen the left turn lane at the US Route 29/US Route 15 Intersection we were reminded of Ada Louise Huxtable’s famous The New Yorker story “Will They Ever Complete Bruckner Boulevard?”

The lowball contract for widening of I-66 west of 234 does not provide for adequate maintenance of capacity. This has resulted in years of cumulative delay time (we call it “person slaughter” in The Shape of the Future). Now the contractor plans to shut down first the eastbound lanes and then the westbound lanes every evening for a month each for “repaving.” That is a way to cut costs of construction but not a good way to provide access and mobility.

Did not George Allen already get the all time prize for reducing VDOT staff? That sure helped mobility and access.

When he left office Shucet sent a memo out that, according to a member of the Commonwealth Transportation Board, said in part: “There is no indication that automobile use will decline in coming generations–even considering the increased cost of gasoline”

That statement alone should condemn him to the opposite alternative of canonization. “Generations” is 50 years. What was he thinking?

Perhaps about his next job. A lot of people who do a good job in the public sector have been hired by the private sector. They are hired not because the job they did looking out for the public interest but because of their contacts or their abilities that will make money for the private enterprise. That is the way the competitive environment works but it is not the basis for sainthood nor, apparently, the path to mobility and access.

EMR

NYT columnist Thomas Friedman has been beating the drums for an energy policy that seriously reduces our appetite for foreign oil. The unquenchable American consumption of oil is one of the key factors, along with increasing demand from China, India and the developing world, driving up the price of oil and buttressing fundamentalist regimes that are overtly hostile to our interests, like Iran, or covertly hostile, like Saudi Arabia.

As noted in a post in today’s Road to Ruin blog, Friedman notes that we are funding both sides of the war on terror. “It is a war against open societies mounted by Islamo-fascists, who are nurtured by mosques, charities and madrasas preaching an intolerant brand of Islam and financed by medieval regimes sustained by our oil purchases.”

So, why am I raising an issue like this in a blog about Virginia politics and policy? Because so much of our demand for oil is the direct outgrowth of our driving habits. And our driving habits are largely the result of our sprawling pattern of development. Increasing the fuel efficiency of the cars we drive is one good place to start. But that’s not enough. Individual Virginia drivers are driving, on average, 70 percent more today than they were 25 years ago (as measured by Vehicle Miles Traveled).

How can we change that, while respecting the principles of market economics and shunning social engineering? By restructuring Virginia’s tax base. We should enact a “carbon” tax on all forms of petroleum consumption — gasoline, home heating oil, diesel fuel, aviation fuel, whatever — and apply that revenue to reducing our other taxes. By taxing petroleum, we encourage petroleum conservation and shift demand to other fuels, such as coal, nuclear and green fuels. We then could apply several billion dollars to reduce corporate income taxes and personal income taxes, thus making Virginia more attractive in the competition for corporate and human capital. Or, if social equity is our concern, we could apply the revenue to eliminating the sales tax on commodities consumed disproportionately by the poor.

Here’s the sublime beauty of the petroleum tax: It indirectly taxes the mullahs and sheikhs who are so hostile to our way of life. By enacting a petroleum tax, Virginians can take a huge step towards energy independence while thumbing their noses at the radical Islamic fundamentalists who threaten our way of life.

Soaring housing prices in Northern Virginia, Suburban Maryland and the District of Columbia may not be a “housing bubble”, says Raymond E. Owens, an economist with the 5th district Federal Reserve Bank. Rising household incomes in the Washington area, strong demand and restricted supply helps explain high housing prices in the Washington metro area, he told the Greater Washington Initiative earlier this week.

“Demand has been high in the Washington area partly because housing creation has not kept pace with job creation in recent years,” Owens said. “A ‘bubble’ is created when prices go up without any underlying economic reasons. But that’s not entirely the case in the Washington area, though we will only know the future path of area housing prices with the benefit of hindsight.”

“Residential building lots apparently aren’t being created fast enough to meet the demand,” Owens said. “Land developers say that the need to comply with environmental requirements, zoning laws, and delays in putting the necessary infrastructure in place – roads, water, electricity and sewer lines – limits residential lot development and thus the number of area houses being built. They tell us that it can take upwards of three years or more to take a housing project from start to finish.” (For details click here.)

The UVA Center for Politics and NBC 12 Richmond have announced agreement on a televised debate in October between gubernatorial candidates Tim Kaine and Jerry Kilgore. Russ Potts will be invited “if he demonstrates at least 15 percent support in public polls.” Professor Larry Sabato will moderate.

From the press release:

This 2005 gubernatorial debate will take place in the Richmond studios of NBC 12 and will be made available via satellite for live broadcast to all television stations regardless of network affiliation. It will be up to each station to decided [sic] whether to carry the debate; citizens are encouraged to contact their local station to urge that they carry the debate. While specific details will be negotiated in the near future, the format will be similar to that of the gubernatorial debate that the Center for Politics hosted in 2001.

All you Potts fans, hope Rasmussen or Mason-Dixon calls you.

The Kilgore campaign has resumed its characterization of Tim Kaine as a “tax and spend liberal,” citing the following evidence:

• Bringing Teacher salaries to the national average – $1.16 billion (Fiscal Impact for HB2075, 2005),
• Small Business Health Care Tax Credit – $540 million (Fiscal Impact for SB1255, 2005),
• Full Funding of Education – $1 to $1.2 billion (Richmond Times-Dispatch, June 2, 2005),
• Phasing Out the Death Tax along the federal phase-out – $216 million (Fiscal Impact for HB4, 2004).

And those are just the highlights of a long laundry list.

Fair enough. Kaine probably does deserve the label “tax and spend liberal” (along with half the General Assembly, including a lot of Republicans). But unless Kilgore’s position is that he’s a tax-and-spend moderate — yeah, I’d spend more money, too, but not as much as the other guy — he needs to detail what he would cut from government spending and how.

Rats are infesting the Patrick Henry Building off Capitol Square, which, due to renovation work at the state Capitol, will serve as temporary home to the governor’s office and the General Assembly during the 2006 session. The Department of General Services has moved aggressively to get rid of the rodents, says director of engineering and buildings Richard Sliwoski, but “the rats are pretty smart.”

The Richmond Times-Dispatch has the story here. The symbolism speaks for itself.

The Virginia Economic Development Partnership has announced that Jeffrey Anderson will be the new executive director of the organization, replacing the retiring Mark Kilduff. Anderson previously was executive vice-president of global integration for BearingPoint.

In selecting Anderson, the Partnership bypassed the entire economic development profession. An executive recruiting firm hired by the VEDP screened 150 candidates over five months. Executive Director of the VEDP is quite a plum job, paying up to $200,000 annually and offering much more flexibility in hiring and firing staff than is available in state agencies.

A Google search on Anderson reveals a fascinating career message board hosted by BearingPoint. Two anonymous posters had some unflattering things to say about him, here and here.

I wonder if the search firm checked those comments out. They might be accurate; they might be jealous sniping. Those of us in the blogosphere are acutely aware of the pros and cons of anonymous posting. Would we want to be judged by anonymous criticism? Is there any other way to get contemporaneous criticism of a candidate’s performance without looking at unfiltered commentary on blogs and message boards? Lord knows only good stuff comes in the candiate’s application packet.

Richmond Times-Dispatch columnist Bart Hinkle has completed his trilogy on the three candidates for governor with today’s look at independent Russ Potts. See my commentary on the previous looks at Kaine and Kilgore here. Potts, it seems, has not advanced much of a platform and has hardly been a model of consistency during his political career.

Look for the adoring editorial boards of the Daily Press and other papers to quickly try to rehabilitate Potts by offering up the great liberal compliment: he’s “evolved.”

Update: As always, Norm looks deeper into the Potts phenomenom.

The Aug. 8, 2005, edition of Bacon’s Rebellion has been posted online.

With all humility, I would draw bloggers’ attention to my own column, which germinated a couple of weeks ago as a post on this blog:

The Shucet Effect
If the rest of state government had kept pace with VDOT over the past three years, Virginia could have cut spending by nearly $900 million. Don’t tell me there’s no waste left in government!

When the Washington Post editorial board starts having misgivings about a major rail transportation project, it’s time to start considering an exit strategy. The estimate for the first phase of the project–Falls Church through Tysons Corner to Reston–has ballooned from $1.5 billion to $2.4 billion.

Update: Road to Ruin has more.

I publicly challenge Tucker Watkins, George Allen’s aide and Kilgore surrogate at the Cantaloupe Festival, to a Blue v. Red “Belly-Bump” at the Virginia Peach Festival in Stuart, Virginia on August 12.

Richmond Mayor L. Douglas Wilder doesn’t think so. Here’s what he said in his column published this morning in the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

Those who continually cry about lack of funding won’t acknowledge that Richmond is the best-funded system per pupil among its peers (Roanoke, Hampton, Lynchburg, Newport News, Portsmouth, Petersburg, Hopewell, Danville, Norfolk), and sits among the top 10 of all systems in Virginia.

Richmond is at the top of the list regarding truancy and drop-outs. Average daily attendance is well below the state average, even though many schools don’t take roll call until after 11:30 a.m. The student population is in steady decline, falling from 26,136 in 2002-03 to an expected 23,400 in 2005-06. We’re spending twice as much for half the student population that once numbered 50,000 students. Even allowing for inflation, that makes no sense at all.

I cannot merely say, ‘Leave it to others to see the job through.’ It is your job and mine. Every part of our society must demand what is right and criticize what is wrong. We must instill the pride in the community, the professionalism in those who teach and administer our children, [and] recognize and … instill in our youngsters the intrinsic value of education.

As long as we define the “problem” with public schools as a lack of money, we’ll never solve the problem, and we’ll never have enough money.