Bacon's Rebellion

Congressman Tom Davis’s personal and legislative involvement in a local zoning issue is so fascinating and so controversial on so many levels that I’m surprised no VA blogger (to my knowledge)has picked it up.

I’m not sure I know what to make of it.

Del. Brian Moran, D-Fairfax, runs a column in the Richmond Times-Dispatch today in praise of Tim Kaine’s real estate tax relief plan. There are two main planks, one of which makes a good deal of sense, the other of which makes no sense whatsoever.

The foolish idea would allow local governments to “exempt 20 percent of a family’s home or arm from real-estate property tax.” Excuse me, what’s the difference between exempting 20 percent of the value of a person’s home from the tax and… cutting the tax rate by 20 percent? If localities want to provide tax relief on the personal property tax, they don’t have to wait for the General Assembly to pass enabling legislation, they can do it right now!

Can someone please explain to me how such a homestead exemption would change anything?

The good idea is one that Kaine brings from Richmond, where it has worked wonders in urban redevelopment: exempting renovations and rehabilitation on old properties for 15 years. This law has substance. By lowering the cost of renovation/rehabilitation, it has encouraged significant investment in older structures. Not only will the renovated property yield higher revenues in 15 years, but it has an immediate impact by improving the desirability of the neighborhood and supporting property values of houses that haven’t been renovated. The city of Richmond has seen an untold number of vacant warehouses, old industrial buildings and large residences renovated, bringing more affluent residents back into the city.

By all means, the General Assembly should pass legislating enabling any locality in Virginia to adopt such an ordinance.

A public hearing was held last night on Richmond Mayor Wilder’s proposed $9 million in cuts to non-departmental spending. The Richmond Times-Dispatch story on the hearing by David Ress does not appear online.

It’s not hard to see why budgets are so hard to cut. Ress’ lede is a “nervous grandmother worried about the daughter with Down syndrome who gets after-school care courtesy of the city.” There’s also the homeless woman who is now employed and has earned her GED, thanks to the city’s support of a homeless shelter.

Only a cold heart could not be moved by these stories. Somehow it just doesn’t seem appropriate to question whether alternatives exist, whether the programs are cost efficient, or whether government even ought to be involved in certain things that involve personal choice. Prioritizing also seems inappropriate to consider: human services, the arts, recreation, and economic development all have worthy aspects, so each gets cuts, instead of a whole category being eliminated to support higher prioritized ones more.

This is why government spending never declines and budgets rarely get cut.

I’m stuck in this stuffy Richmond office when I should be covering breaking news from the Shad Planking in Wakefield ….

What stories will the reporters ferret out from tight-lipped partisans? Commonwealth Conservative hints that Tim Kaine’s out-of-state brigade might be a headliner, but I’m betting MSM correspondents won’t find any fault with carpetbaggers from MoveOn.org.

My money is on some variation of Jerry Kilgore’s jokes falling flat while Kaine has them rolling in the dust. Of course, Virginia’s top quipster, Sen. Russ Potts, will undoubtably get lot of coverage as he regales the Fourth Estate with tall tax tales.

The Virginian-Pilot editorial board feels Sen. Emmett Hanger’s pain at having his petitions stuck in traffic, but I suspect they’re actually chortling inside. What better example to support their drumbeat for more spending on transportation?

The Pilot has a suggestion:

Virginia voters ought to insist that candidates for statewide office sign a three-part pact:

First, they’ll drive everywhere during the campaign, just like regular Virginians. Average Joe can’t fly from Norfolk to Richmond; neither should they.

Second, they’ll schedule at least one 9 a.m. coffee and one 6 p.m. meet-and-greet on every visit to Northern Virginia. That means a pre-dawn wake-up for the first event and a long afternoon getting to the second.

Third, entering Hampton Roads, they’ll drive over a drawbridge or through a tunnel. No cheating by going through the U.S. 460 back door at Windsor.

While this suggested pact will give candidates a heaping dose of empathy with their potential constituents, I’d add a fourth part to the oath:

Fourth, after navigating each transportation bottleneck and arriving at their destination, they’ll offer their specific solution for the gridlock and how they’d pay for it.

The supposed shortcomings of Virginia Republicans, their ideas and their agenda, have been meticulously chronicled by bloggers of all stripes. Democrats appear to exist merely as an appendage to moderate Republicans who occasionally thwart their more conservative brethren.

Virginia Centrist and Commonwealth Commonsense are asking where the new ideas and the intellectual vigor are in the Democratic Party of Virginia. It’s a good question. Something beats nothing every time and no one really knows what Democrats stand for, except a visceral distaste for the GOP.

Perhaps it will take getting close enough to “taste” a majority in the House of Delegates for Democrats to stand on a reasonably concrete platform of ideas.

Maybe we’d know who the next governor will be by the color of the smoke at the Shad Planking conclave tomorrow ….

Instead, we’ll count signs.

From the Washington Post comes this story of budget cutting and lay-offs at the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority. They operate 19 parks and rely heavily on user fees.

Unfortunately for the Park Authority, there is heavy competition from a growing number of golf courses in the Washington, DC area. There are too many courses to sustain the stagnant number of golfers.

Other reasons cited for budget woes included the 2001 sniper panic and that traditonal bugaboo of outdoor activities–bad weather.

Lloyd Ross of Middleburg and Kentbridge Farm has given $300,000 to the Russ Potts campaign. I was curious to learn more about this bastion of “Independent Republican” support. My friend J. Chadwick Worthington, who runs the off-line HorseCountryBS blog, offered to give me a report. To read Chadwick’s post, click satire.

“Open government” is one of those things that only journalists and policy wonks seem to get exercised about, but I consider myself a bit of both, so I find the latest news from the Kilgore camp eminently praiseworthy. “The people of Virginia are the owners of Virginia’s government, and they deserve a government that is open, honest and accountable,” stated the Kilgore campaign in its latest e-mail salvo.

Kilgore offers some solid ideas. His nine-plank program includes the following:

• Provide on-line access to Statement of Economic Interests forms filed by executive branch officers and employees, members of the General Assembly and candidates for state office;
• Revise the Statement of Economic Interests form to more accurately reflect assets and interests held by public officials;
• Require each executive branch agency to designate an Ethics Compliance Officer;
• Enhance disclosure of compensation received by legislators from a publicly regulated business regulated by the State Corporation Commission.

Bravo!

There’s more, although the Kilgore campaign does not appear to have posted its summary of the plan on its website yet. Full disclosure is the antidote to conflicts of interest and questionable ethics in government, not more restrictions on contributions or the movement of people in and out of government. Kilgore got this one right.

Looks like the down-ticket GOP candidates are falling into line behind the Kilgore campaign team on the weighty issue of the display of signage during the Shad planking. “The sign war is considered a demonstration of grassroots strength and organization,” noted Kilgore campaign manager Ken Hutcheson in an April 7 memo that has just come to my attention. But all down-ticket campaigns “would come together as a whole to assist in the Kilgore effort to win the sign war against Tim Kaine.”

The candidates for lieutenant governor (Bill Bolling, Sean Connaughton and Gil Davis) and for attorney general (Steve Baril and Bob McDonnell) all agreed to display only those signs authorized by the Kilgore for Governor campaign. Each down-ticket campaign will be responsible for providing up to volunteers and/or staff to assist with Kilgore signage. Said the Hutcheson memo: “There will be no down-ticket sign war within the Republican Party.”

Memo to the George Fitch for Governor campaign: Better send a busload of volunteers to the shad planking. No signs = no visibility with the political establishment and punditocracy = no campaign.

According to the Washington Post, six of the 17 House Republican delegates who supported state tax increases last year will be challenged in the primaries. Challengers have until Wednesday to submit a petition with 125 or more valid signatures, so one or two more candidates may surface, but the hope of some in the anti-tax movement that all 17 would face opposition is likely to go unfulfilled.

Revolutionary upheaval in the Republican Party does not seem in the cards. This election is shaping up as more of a bush war–a nuisance to the forces of Business As Usual, but hardly a threat. Given the immense advantages of incumbency, the anti-tax insurgents will be lucky to bump off any of the 17.

As one who believes that the 2004 tax increases were unjustified, I’m amazed at the lack of discontent. I suppose you can attribute the quietude to the political genius of Mark Warner, who jiggered his tax “restructuring” so that a significant majority of Virginians would come out ahead, even if only marginally. Meanwhile, homeowners may be distressed about rising property taxes, but they can’t blame their General Assembly delegates for the sins of their local boards of supervisors.

The other failure so far is the inability of the anti-tax forces to spin a compelling anti-tax narrative. The fact is, the Commonwealth is facing real problems. Transportation, education, Medicaid, the environment, the mentally disabled, etc. How do we address those very real problems without raising taxes? The insurrectionists in the GOP just don’t have a good answer.

I should leave this to The Salt Lick, but he’s covering another important story. The Roanoke Times editorial page has come out against Sen. George Allen’s plan to keep internet access from being taxed. The Times compares Allen to George Armstrong Custer and tell us,

The information superhighway is now a maturing, extraordinarily competitive industry, more than economically resilient and strong enough to accept its civic responsibilities and begin contributing to the general welfare, as do other American industries.

Now, maybe I don’t understand all the ins and outs of internet taxation, but won’t I be paying the tax, not the “economically resilient and strong” internet industry?

Update: Commonwealth Conservative is more succinct.

Two Washington Post statehouse reporters got together and compared the political climate of Maryland and Virginia. My favorite quote:

“It’s like Virginia is a very stern daddy and Maryland is a very compassionate mommy,” said Maryland Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. (D-Calvert).

The estimable Norm over at One Man’s Trash has some insightful thoughts on radio’s present and future, inspired, of course, by his Jeff “Good Copy” Schapiro reporting.