Bacon's Rebellion

Today I had the pleasure of lunch with Norm Leahy, proprietor of one my favorite blogs, One Man’s Trash. Our discussion was wide-ranging and animated, almost like being in the Bacon’s Rebellion comment section. We agreed that Jeff Schapiro was the gold standard in balanced political reporting, unmet needs is the great issue of our time, and Russ Potts’ double-decker highway idea was sheer genius.

Well, maybe I’m stretching our agreement.

In person, he was an impressive guy. Agree or disagree with him, he’s a unique voice in the blogosphere.

The quality of the roads in Virginia’s major metropolitan areas does not stack up very well to that of other cities, according to data compiled by The Road Information Project and published today in USA Today. According to a chart in USA Today, the “Virginia Beach” metro area and Washington. D.C. metro areas are in the middle of the pack–roughly in line with national averages, which are nothing to write home about. Richmond’s roads are measurably worse.

The numbers break out like this:

Virginia Beach: 28 percent good; 23 percent fair; 27 percent mediocre; 22 percent bad.

Washington, D.C.: 30 percent good; 17 percent fair; 28 percent mediocre; 24 percent bad.

Richmond: 18 percent good; 26 percent fair; 32 percent mediocre; 23 percent bad.

Now, go read Steve Haner’s column in Bacon’s Rebellion, “The Transportation SOLs,” which argues that spending on road maintenance is crowding out dollars for new construction. According to Steve’s numbers, maintenance will consume all state road dollars by 2018. (See chart.) I don’t know where he gets his numbers, and I don’t know how good they are because I haven’t had a chance to examine the assumptions embedded in them. But given that those are the only numbers we’ve got, and given the already mediocre condition of Virginia’s roads, it’s understandable why Virginia lawmakers believe we have a time bomb on our hands.

One Man’s Trash commented yesterday on the news of William Woodfin’s resignation as Director of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. A scathing auditor’s report on numerous irregularities in the agency was the proximate cause.

Today, editorials here, here, and here reacted, with the Virginian-Pilot being typical:

A state auditor’s report identifying rampant waste and abuse at the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries presents a stunning indictment of the goings-on at a major agency.

Reading the account of personal junkets, high-priced trinkets and overblown “protection” units brings to mind a banana republic where kingpins stomp around in safari hats and expensive boots, lording over the peons who keep the bosses supplied with game and sport.

Where were the checks and balances? If not for a citizen whistle-blower and the state’s fraud, waste, and abuse hotline, the misdeeds, primarily in the enforcement unit, would be continuing full bore.

The Pilot calls on Gov. Warner to replace the agency’s entire Board of Directors.

In state government, few watchdogs exist. That’s why it took citizens to uncover these practices. I suspect that many agency big-wigs are doing things similar in nature to what the Game and Inland Fisheries audit criticized. I hope they take the audit to heart and I hope that Gov. Warner, in his waning months as Governor, reminds his appointees that their jobs are about serving the taxpayers, not collecting perks and building empires.

Blogger Steve Sailor has an explanation for why some states are “red” and the others are “blue.” He calls it Affordable Family Formation. His thesis is as persuasive as any I’ve seen and I think it can explain the red/blue divide in Virginia, too. Hat tip to Mickey Kaus in Slate ….

PS Since we’ve started a little Poly Sci 301 class, we might as well do a little more reading. Professor Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball has guest Professor Alan Abramowitz debunking gerrymandering as an explanation for non-competitive races.

Those wanting an update on “The Shelter Crisis” since Monday can check out the front page of todays The Washington Post Business Section: “Home Sales Continue at Torrid Pace: No Sign Yet of Market Slowing Down Soon.”

Interesting quotes from Greenspan’s talk on Friday and from shelter industry spinners.

Also CNN carried a story yesterday that since 2000 the number of houses priced at over $1-million has doubled. So has the number of folks that are not at the top of the food chain who cannot afford shelter.

It is interesting that when viewed as an economic issue, not a human settlement pattern issue, there is concern for the potential of a house price bust but nothing about the impact if there is no bust and shelter gets farther and farther out of reach in all the regions with Fuller and Florida’s “More, Better Jobs.”

EMR

The NoTollIncrease.com has been urging commuters to boycott the Dulles Toll Road and use alternate parallel routes. Apparently, the boycott had some effect on the first work-day following the toll increase. According to the TimeCommunity.com newspapers, traffic dropped down by 6% on Monday, compared to the Monday traffic counts for the three weeks before the toll increase. The average transaction count for the three weeks prior to the toll increase was: 372,354. Last Monday the toll transaction count dropped to 350,202.

The New York Times has visited Charlottesville and Chilhowie, Va. — Chilhowie, for those not lucky enough to have visited SW Virginia, is a small mill town not far from Bristol — as part of its ongoing “Class Matters” exploration of America’s class divide. Writer David Leonhardt provides a sympathetic portrait of a college drop-out Andy Blevins, who works at a supermarket warehouse, using Blevins to illustrate the factors that work against upward economic mobility for working-class youth. The great barrier today, according to the Times, is getting that college degree.

Of special interest to Bacon’s Rebellion readers are the observations of University of Virginia President John T. Casteen III, who, after years of favoring legacies (to help with fund-raising) and minorities (to correct historical injustices) seems to have awaken to the plight of the white working class. Sayeth the Times:

“The system makes a false promise to students,” said [Casteen], himself the son of a Virginia shipyard worker. Colleges … present themselves as meritocracies in which academic ability and hard work are always rewarded. In fact, he said, many working-class students face obstacles they cannot overcome on their own. …

No flagship state university has a smaller proportion of low-income students than Virginia. Just 8 percent of undergraduates last year came from families in the bottom half of the income distribution, down from 11 percent a decade ago. That change sneaked up on him, Mr. Casteen said, and he has spent a good part of the last year trying to prevent it from becoming part of his legacy. …

Like Virginia, a handful of other colleges are not only increasing financial aid but also promising to give weight to economic class in granting admissions. They say they want to make an effort to admit more low-income students, just as they now do for minorities and children of alumni.

(Thanks to Joyce Dodd for bringing this article to my attention.)

An excerpt from Wayne Madsen’s book, ‘Exposing Karl Rove,’ reads, “He’s America’s Joseph Goebbels. As a 21-year old Young Republican in Texas, Karl Rove not only pimped for Richard Nixon’s chief political dirty tricks strategist Donald Segretti but soon caught the eye of the incoming Republican National Committee Chairman, George H. W. Bush. Rove’s dirty tricks on behalf of Nixon’s 1972 campaign catapulted Rove onto the national stage. From his Eagle’s Nest in the West Wing of the White House, Rove now directs a formidable political dirty tricks operation and disinformation mill.”

Ouch! Did ‘Pat’ edit that?

On Saturday, June 4, invitations have been sent forth to celebrate with the Republican Party and Virginia’s Republican elected officials, candidates and supporters at the Republican Party of Virginia’s annual Commonwealth Gala with Special Guest…

As the Angels stand in ‘Pub orchestra pit and start to play those heavenly evangelic trumpets… Enters the ‘brains behind the bush’, ‘the boy genius’, ‘the man with the plan’, ‘king karl’… Ladies and gentlemen, would you please stand and welcome the one and only ‘turd-blossom’ himself… Mr. Karl Rove!

Yes siree, the Republican boogieman that has systematically and methodically eliminated the Democratic Party from top down on the national level is coming to Virginia for an election year pep rally and fund raising event.

Rumors say that several Howard Dean ‘primal screams’ emitted from Tim Kaine and his campaign staff after learning of the ‘Pub event of the year. And several members of the RaisingKaine.com blog site drank koolaid laced with their new late-night blog buddies, Jim Beam and Jack Daniels.

Do you suppose DNC chairman Howard Dean will speak (i.e. scream) at Tim ‘the choirboy’ Kaine’s upcoming 2005 Virginia Democratic Caucus Gala at the Homestead?

Not likely, but… I heard ex-California Governor Gray Davis was available. He’s the goofy Democratic governor that wanted to raid the state property taxes, which were collected locally to pay for school programs without additional aid from the state, to pay off the state budget deficit.

~ the blue dog

Democrat Bruce Elder will be announcing his candidacy for the 20th District House of Delegates, Saturday 28 May 2005, at the bandstand in Gypsy Hill Park at 1100 a.m. sharp.

Good luck Bruce! But…

It’s only a matter of time before Citizen Bruce discovers his Democratic friends have been watching the red state arising — and are probably in an ‘Evangelical John’ boat seeking refuge with trustworthy Captain Chris Saxman.

Read more about in the AFP Thursday edition, Blue Dog Tales.

~ the blue dog

E&E Enterprises Global, Inc., a minority-owned government contractor, has filed suit against the Virginia Department of Education for discrimination in the agency’s solicitation for services under Gov. Mark R. Warner’s “Education For A Lifetime” initiative. The suit alleges that the agency discriminated against E&E by requiring the firm to fulfill requirements that not required of the non-minority bidder, and disqualified E&E once it was apparent that E&E was the lowest responsive and responsible bidder.

A 2003 disparity study commissioned by the Commonwealth reported that the Commonwealth awarded only $34.4 million out of nearly $8 billion on minority-owned businesses from July 1, 1998 through June 30, 2002 — less than 0.44% of its total spending. Statistics for the Virginia Department of Education for this same period show that the agency awarded over $75 million in contracts to non-minority-owned businesses compared to awarding only $17,000 in contracts to minority-owned businesses. Read the press release.

Any comment, Will?

Nibbling away at the problem of traffic congestion in one of Virginia’s most densely populated localities, Seattle-based Flexcar and Cambridge, Mass.-based Zipcar have increased their commitment to their car-sharing partnerships with Arlington County. Since the county began the program with the two companies last March, reports the Washington Business Journal, Flexcar and Zipcar have seen a combined 150 percent increase in usage and membership that more than doubled.

The two firms have added a total of 15 additional vehicles, bringing to 40 the total parked at designated locations in the Ballston-Rosslyn corridor, Crystal City and Pentagon City. They plan to add another 15 vehicles in the county before the end of the year.

Pilot project survey results, corroborated with evidence from studies in North America and Europe, show that carsharing: has allowed members to reduce their car ownership; encourages more transit trips; reduces the number of cars on the road; reduces the number of vehicle miles traveled; and provides for a much more efficient use of parking spaces.

Shared car programs like Arlington’s won’t “solve” Virginia’s increasing traffic congestion. There is no single solution. Public policy must encourage a wide variety of solutions–often by partnering, as Arlington has done, with wild-eyed entrepreneurs with crazy ideas. It would be encouraging if Sen. Chichester’s transportation task force–manned primarily by Republicans, members of the business community and others who profess to believe in free markets–chose to solicit innovative ideas from the private sector.

There’s an interesting press release emanating from Newport News today on PR Newswire. Superintendent Marcus Newsome is understandably proud that his urban school system had four of its five high schools listed in Newsweek Magazine’s list of 1,000 top performing high schools in the country.

Newsom has succeeded in the face of conditions typically cited as reasons for failure. Newport News is a working class town with its fair share of poverty. Approximately 45 percent of the city’s 33,000 students are eligible for free or reduced lunch; 55 percent are African-American and 1o percent are Hispanic.

Newsome credits a systemic approach coupled with “research-based means of changing school cultures” and building strong leadership teams. In partnership with the HOPE Foundation (Harnessing Optimism and Potential through Education), based in Bloomington, Ind., the school system has worked intensively with low-performing schools to train leadership teams of teachers and administrators.

Notes Jay Mathews, creator of the Newsweek list: “The more schools I have examined, the more I have come to believe in the power of high school cultures, which are different in different parts of the country for reasons that often have little to do with the usual keys to high school performance — the incomes and educations of the parents.”

Would somebody please convey this message to our lawmakers? We’ve tried pouring money into schools. Maybe it’s time to try a little HOPE.

Someone on the Kilgore team knows their stuff when it comes to healthcare. I was pleasantly surprised at the substantive nature of the proposals in the latest release from the Kilgore campaign. The plan overdoes it with new tax “credits”, which are nothing more than back-door expenditures, but there’s no way to fix Virginia’s health care system on the cheap. All things considered, there are some meaty ideas that deserve consideration. This may be the Kilgore team’s best effort yet. The highlights:

• Information Technology. On the grounds that IT can boost productivity of a health care system plagued by paperwork and redundancy, Kilgore would encourage physicians, public-private partnerships and the state to invest in IT projects and integrated information systems. Good idea. IT can save billions and improve patient safety.
• Long-Term Care. Kilgore would allow individuals purchasing long-term care insurance for themselves or their parents to receive a tax credit. Sounds good, but could be a budget buster. It’ll drain the treasury, but won’t save the state any money: Poor people won’t buy the insurance — they’ll just go on Medicaid.
• Rural Primary Care. Kilgore wants to put a rural health center in every distressed community in Virginia. Good idea. Money spent preventing illness in a primary care setting can save money spent on curing an illness in a hospital.
• Health Savings Accounts. Kilgore wants to “work closely with the federal government” to expand access to health savings accounts. OK. That’s something that insurance companies should be doing, but I can’t see any harm coming of it.

It’s a good start. If only someone would (1) tackle mandated insurance benefits which makes the price of medical insurance unaffordable for small business, and (2) eliminate the Certificate of Public Need process, which discourages competition between hospitals and specialty health care facilities.

The Virginia League of Conservation Voters has endorsed Tim Kaine for governor, Creigh Deeds for attorney general, and the following four candidates running in House of Delegates primaries:

• Joe May, R-Leesburg
• David Toscano, D-Charlottesville, running for Mitchell Van Yahres’ seat
• Jennifer McClellan, D-Richmond, running in Viola Baskerville’s seat
• Peter Schmidt, R-Virginia Beach, running against GOP incumbent Harry Purkey

Said Executive Director Lisa Guthrie: “These candidates … demonstrate a whole-hearted commitment to conservation in the commonwealth.” The League hasn’t posted the press release online yet (that I can find), but here’s the website.

Tim Kaine is being praised for not letting the “attack ad” aired by the Republican Governor’s Association go unanswered. I wonder, though, if the “answer” doesn’t open Kaine up to more attack ads. “Turned Richmond Around” isn’t a theme that I think will resonate with most Virginians. To the extent that the City of Richmond is in the news for budget battles and crime, it’s hard to make the case that it got “turned around.”

I still think Kaine’s best selling point is “Warner, Con’t.”