Bacon's Rebellion

Regional transportation tax referendums are a big issue… At first, I really didn’t like the Kilgore idea, but have changed my mind.

Commonwealth Watch, Poli Amatuer, has posted a good analysis of the debates and the issue of referendums…Commonwealth Watch

The Blue Dog agrees: Republican Kilgore is right. Democrat Kaine is wrong not to trust the people. And Independent Potts is living in an alternative pro-tax universe.

But truth is, the real issue in 2005 is a funding source for Virginia transportation needs.

Kilgore = tax referendums for transportation
Potts = new, or increase taxes for transportation
Kaine = transportation lockbox: in other words, absolutely nothing, but…

In the weekend debate, Kaine claimed the title of ‘heir’ to the Warner tax-increasing legacy.

Since fuel prices have increased so dramatically in the past two years, candidate Tim Kaine ‘probably’ backed away from his initial suggestions of a ‘Gas Tax’ increase for transportation needs. That would have been the ‘kiss of death’ in the 2005 Gubernatorial campaign.

In Sunday’s Outlook section, WaPo pundit Gordon Morse criticized both the Kaine and Kilgore campaign for “No Pay. No Plan. No Go in Virginia.”

Morse wrote, “Somehow that message needs to get across to Virginia road users: not free. But don’t count on our leading gubernatorial candidates — Republican Jerry Kilgore and Democrat Tim Kaine — to post the notice.”

Between fiscal 1997 and 2004, the city of Norfolk school system lost 1,539 students, or 4.3 percent of its enrollment. If the logic of the private sector had applied, the school system would have trimmed its staff accordingly. But school systems function according to a logic all their own. Norfolk schools added 704 positions to its payroll, an increase of 22.7 percent.

Virginia schools are gripped by a productivity crisis, according to “Too Much of a Good Thing: Staffing and Students in Virginia’s School Districts,” a report issued by the Clare Boothe Luce Policy Institute. Norfolk was hardly atypical. Stated the report: “More than half of the state’s school districts — 68 in all — added instructional staff over the eight years although the number of students they had to educate declined.”

Advocates of higher educational spending argue that increasing the number of instructional employees is a good thing. More teachers for fewer students translates into a better teacher-student ratio; in theory, smaller class sizes improve the quality of education. But the surging number of teachers has not, in fact, resulted in improvements in student performance, the study observes.

Some blame the state’s “Standards of Quality” staffing mandates for the relentless increase in the number of school personnel. But the report suggests that “incremental financing,” the process of determining school budgets by adding or subtracting incremental spending from major line items, also is a villain.

Numbers junkies will find historic breakdowns on spending, staff and student-staff ratios here.

(Thanks go to Tim Wise, El Growler Grande, from the Arlington Taxpayers Alliance for the tip.)

scheduled for Aug. 27 in Charlottesville (contact Sorensen or see particulars elsewhere), please, as we contemplate this one, let us keep foremost in our minds that part of our Constition that begins with the words “Congress shall make no law…” Sure, there are other issues–technology, responsibility, fairness, ethics, privacy, copyright, access, political, regulatory, etc.–and I expect that we will mull over these things, but they are but pale, distant, vacuous pretenders to anything resembling parity with Free Speech.

I’m enrolling in Braille classes and shopping for a seeing eye dog!

When the editorial page of the Washington Post grudgingly concedes that Jerry Kilgore wasn’t clubbed like a baby seal at yesterday’s debate, I think it’s possible to get a real sense of who “won” the Greenbrier debate:

But the mismatch that Democrats had hoped for, and Republicans had feared, did not materialize.

Call it a draw, with the psychological edge to Mr. Kilgore.

I’m sure it pained that writer to pen those words. One has to wonder why Democrats always put so much faith in debates, hype their capabilities, and always gleefully shackle their opponent with such low expectations that it is impossible not to exceed them. Republicans gladly play along and usually benefit, as appears to be the case from the Greenbrier.

Update: Poli Amateur has a good survey of debate coverage in Virginia papers over at Commonwealth Watch.

Third party gubernatorial candidate Russ Potts didn’t need to be in the debate to get his message out. Bob Lewis of the AP, after writing up the debate with a balanced look at both Kaine and Kilgore, then rushed to do a full story just on Potts’ reaction. It’s on the Times-Dispatch website.

It’s obvious that Potts is almost exclusively an anti-Kilgore candidate. He whined,

“I thought it was a sad commentary on democracy in Virginia when a candidate for governor doesn’t have the courage, the conviction or the confidence to get on a podium with the two other candidates for governor.”

If this is such a bedrock principle, it’s curious why Potts doesn’t criticize Kaine for lacking the courage to refuse a debate in which Potts can’t participate.

Potts’ transportation stand would seem marginally closer to Kilgore than Kaine, but Potts only criticizes Kilgore:

He would have demanded Kilgore and Kaine say how they would pay for any substantive highway improvements since both offer initiatives that rely on constitutional amendments that could not take effect before 2009.

But the nominees addressed the issue anyway. Kilgore said he would sign no tax increase legislation not first submitted to a referendum. Kaine said he would veto any tax bill passed before dedicated transportation funds are protected by a constitutional amendment.

“I’d oppose the referendum because you spell referendum C-O-W-A-R-D, coward,” Potts said.

At least with Kilgore’s plan, there’s a chance that a tax hike Potts is itching to impose could take effect before 2009. But, it’s cowardice to submit it to voters! It’s much more courageous to wait until 2009 for a potential constitutional amendment before raising taxes.

The real winner of the debate may have been Potts, not a master debater, but a master media manipulator.

Even I felt bad for Jerry before this one was over. It was painful…like watching the Rodney King beating all over again. I understand now why Kilgore is hesitant to debate. He should be. Watch for any future encounters already scheduled to be cancelled.

Bob Lewis of the Associated Press has posted a story on today’s gubernatorial debate that is on the Virginian-Pilot website.

He doesn’t declare a winner, but quotes highlights and declares that well-worn answers and barbs were the order of the day.

Commonwealth Conservative has the reactions of two non-party spinners, one of them UVA’s Larry Sabato, contradicting the impression left by the observers at TK4G that Kaine destroyed Kilgore.

And here I trusted Democrats to “tell it like is.”

I just checked the liveblogging of the gubernatorial debate over at TK4G. Here was their most balanced entry:

Jerry’s opening statement is basically an attack on Tim… the usual stuff. He was a little shaky talking about himself, but he appears to warm up when going negative on Tim. Charming.

I guess I’ll wait for Russ Potts’ spin; it’ll probably be less predictable.

Via Commonwealth Conservative and Waldo Jaquith, we learn that a long-awaited event has finally been scheduled. The Summit on Blogging and Democracy in the Commonwealth will be held Satuday, August 27th, at the Doubletree Hotel in Charlottesville.

As soon as I finish this post, I’m going to register. I hope as many of both my blogging colleagues and our readers will also consider attending. Follow one of the links above to register. Big kudos to Waldo, “John Behan,” the Sorensen, and anyone else who put this great opportunity together.

Virginia, with nearly 800,000 veterans—better than 1-in-10 of the state’s population—trails 48 states in compensation to its disabled veterans, according to an analysis released this week by the Chicago Sun-Times. Disabled veterans in the Commonwealth receive, on average, $6978 in annual disability pay. Only Ohio, at $6860, kept Virginia veterans from being dead last in the nation.

According to the report, disability pay nationally averages better than $8000. Puerto Rico leads the nation, with $11,422, followed by New Mexico. Even U. S. veterans in the Phillipines—with annual compensation of $9971—fare far better than Virginia’s disabled veterans.

Regionally, disabled veterans in North Carolina receive $8750; in Tennessee, $8295; in West Virginia $10,373; in South Carolina, $8056.

The disclosures are sure to inflame criticism of the Bush Administration’s Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), which revealed a $1 billion funding shortfall earlier this year, will likely set the state’s congressional delegation to scrambling in search of corrective action , and may become a key point of contention in the run-up to Virginia’s election of a new governor and a new House of Delegates in November.

And well it should. There is no excuse—none—for this kind of discrepancy in how disabled veterans are treated state-to-state across the nation.

I have to admit that I was surprised by Highland County Supervisors’ 2-1 vote in favor of Virginia’s first industrial wind farm. There was huge opposition to the project, generating large turn-outs at public hearings.Supervisor Robin Sullenberger cast the negative vote. He’s a well-known economic developer in the Valley.

As one might expect, this decision is headed for the courts.

It is obvious that the tax-happy folks at the Newport News Daily Press are behind Russ Potts. They need to end the charade of being open-minded observers of this gubernatorial campaign and formally endorse the Winchester Senator.

The DP‘s latest editorial whines over Potts’ exclusion from tomorrow’s debate. They print Potts’ responses to a few softball questions.

Undoubtably, the Daily Press will comment on the actual debate responses of Kaine and Kilgore. They can redeem themselves if they also compare and contrast the questions asked those two and the questions/responses of their man Potts. I can’t imagine Kaine or Kilgore being any more vacuous and repetitive than this:

Everything has to be on the table including public-private partnerships, land use policies, private toll roads, private ownership of highways, which has proven to be successful in Holland and Belgium, mass transit and rail. Everything has to be on the table. My plan will be presented to the General Assembly early in 2006, and we will call a special session to address the transportation crisis, and I will keep the delegates and senators there until we vote our plan up or down. Everything does have to be on the table ….[italics mine]

Of course, we know that some things aren’t on the table because Potts doesn’t want to use general fund money for transportation and he doesn’t want any regional transportation solutions. But everyting has to be on the table!

Update: Norm at the real Potts Truth Squad is back from vacation and is all over this in much more detail than I provided. Welcome back, Norm, it’s been lonely ….

In what is surely one of the oddest political traditions anywhere in the country, the Republican and Democratic nominees for governor of Virginia hold their first debate at the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. I’m wondering if our bloggers could engage in a little handicapping before the event.

Has Tim Kaine so pysched out Jerry Kilgore regarding his accent and debating skills that Kilgore’s performance will be affected?

Given the incredibly low expectations for Kilgore, will merely getting clobbered instead of getting annihilated constitute a “win”?

Given the non-televised nature of the joust, does the debate really matter?

Can we trust the Sunday morning evaluations of the reporters covering the event as to which candidate acquits himself best?