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Jeanine’s Memes
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Be Careful What You Ask For
Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg, D-Henrico by Dick Hall-Sizemore
Sen. Schuyler VanValkenburg (D-Henrico) is very upset about the plan to locate a Rosie’s Gaming Emporium in Henrico County. This is the facility that features “historical horse racing,” which many have equated to slot machines.
Churchill Downs, the parent company of Rosie’s, plans to open the facility in an existing shopping center, the zoning of which would allow by right the uses proposed by Churchill Downs. That is, it would have allowed them by right before June 25, when the Board of Supervisors enacted an ordinance requiring a provisional use permit for any such facility. What has got VanValkenburg and others upset and frustrated is that Churchill Downs won the “race to the courthouse.” It filed its plans with the county on June 18; therefore, the zoning ordinance in effect on that date governs. There is nothing the county can do about it.
Shortly thereafter, Henrico’s three state senators and five delegates sent a letter to the Churchill Downs CEO expressing their opposition to the manner in which the company submitted the plans and asking the company to withdraw its plans and play by the new rules. A month later, there has been no reply. Now, the senator is upset that he is being ignored. “I am extremely disappointed in Colonial Downs Group and Rosie’s Gaming Emporium for their lack of response…. It is deeply problematic when you have every local and state elected official in Henrico asking a company to submit itself to public input, transparency, and to engage in a fair process and they refuse to respond.”
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By the Way….
Those readers in the Bacon’s Rebellion community who view the Washington Post as a mouthpiece for progressives need to read the comments of the paper’s editorial board regarding Kamala Harris’ economic plan. For those who do not subscribe to the Post, here is the summation: “Instead of delivering a substantial plan, she squandered the moment on populist gimmicks.”
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Virginians Unhappy With the Cost of College
by James A. Bacon
In perhaps the most interesting question posed in the Virginia Commonwealth University Wilder School’s recent poll, 809 Virginians were asked if they thought the $26,500 average tuition charged by four-year colleges in the state was “worth it.”
Fifty-five percent disagreed — 30% strongly.
Higher ed faces a crisis in the value proposition it’s selling. Rising tuitions are pricing out less affluent Virginians, while the perception of rampant political correctness is turning off the half of the population that identifies as conservative.
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A Better Poll Question: What Matters Most to Virginia Voters
The two most important issues — by far — influencing how Virginians intend to vote are inflation and abortion, according to Virginia Commonwealth University Wilder School of Government’s latest poll. Inflation tops the list at 31%, followed by women’s reproductive rights (23%).
A second tier of issues are immigration (12%) and gun control (7%). Taxes, schools, and crime are third-tier issues.
Interestingly, a centerpiece of the Democratic Party’s rhetorical strategy — maintaining democracy and civility — didn’t register at all. Not one of the poll’s 809 respondents listed it as a top priority.
Thirty percent of those polled identified as Democrats, 26% as Republicans, and 35% as independents. As both parties play to their electoral bases in the elections, that leaves a plurality, independent voters, up for grabs. — JAB
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Worthless Poll Question, Worthless Reporting
by James A. Bacon
Last week Virginia Commonwealth University’s Wilder School of Government issued findings from its latest public opinion poll. Some of the results were interesting, which I’ll get to in another post. But one was worthless to the point of being deceptive.
Here is the question: “Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: The history of race should be taught in K through 12 schools in the Commonwealth of Virginia.”
The implication is clear. Either the history of race is not taught in Virginia’s K-12 schools, or there are people who don’t think it should be. Here is the result:
What a surprise — roughly four out of five Virginians agree that history of race should be taught.
What a blow to the Youngkin administration! As the Virginia Mercury dutifully wrote in providing context to the poll finding, “Since 2022, Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration has been examining and revising educational content related to race and equity, which the governor branded ‘divisive’ in his first executive order.”
Just one problem.
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Masks Required? Really? Yes, Really.
A week ago the Youngkin administration urged Virginia’s public colleges and universities to update their time-place-and-manner restrictions on campus protests. In particular, it asked them to restrict the wearing of masks for purposes of concealment, which can be illegal under state law.
In emails to administrators Secretary of Education Aimee Guidera stressed the urgency of the situation. Classes would resume in just a few days, and more pro-Palestinian demonstrations were sure to follow.
Lo and behold, the Students for Justice in Palestine at the University of Virginia have begun publicizing an “all out for Gaza” event — masks required — on August 18.
The address listed is off-campus. But the UVA Police Department surely knows that any rally could wind up on Grounds. If not this demonstration, then the next one. UVA has two days to get its policy ducks in a row or be at risk of another imbroglio like the clearing of the Encampment for Gaza in May. — JAB
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Youngkin Denies Virginia Taxpayers Access to Free Tax Services
by Dick Hall-Sizemore
The 2022 federal Inflation Reduction Act directed the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to prepare for Congress a report on “a potential IRS-run free direct e-file tax return system (Direct File).” After delivering the report to Congress, the IRS proceeded to develop a pilot e-file tax return system and made it available to taxpayers in 12 states for the 2024 filing season.
The response of taxpayers to IRS surveys was highly favorable, as were reports in the media (see here and here). After making adjustments to the program based on results from the pilot, the IRS announced that it would make the program, called Direct File, available nationwide in 2025.
Direct File, as used in the pilot, was limited to relatively simple tax returns. For example, all of a taxpayer’s income had to be from wages and no more than $1,500 in interest income. Also, only the standard deduction was available. In its announcement of nationwide application, the IRS stated it was examining ways to expand the number of tax situations the program could cover in 2025 and in the future. Millions of taxpayers across the country will have the option in 2025 of directly completing and filing their income tax returns electronically, at no cost, with the IRS.
Alas, Virginia taxpayers will not be in that number.
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VCU Clarifies Rules for Demonstrators
by James A. Bacon
Virginia Commonwealth University, where police clashed with pro-Palestinian demonstrators in the spring, has responded with alacrity to Youngkin administration admonitions to update its policies in preparation for more mayhem when students return for the fall semester.
Among the more notable features of the updated policies is a requirement that anyone wearing a face mask for the purpose of concealment must present an ID to an Authorized University Employee. State law, enacted to combat the Ku Klux Klan, restricts the wearing of masks to conceal one’s identity. The law was rarely enforced last spring when protesters wore keffiyehs and COVID masks over their faces.
VCU’s policies are laid out in three documents: “Interim Campus Expression and Space Utilization,” “Interim Concealment of Identity,” and “Interim Student Code of Conduct.”
In communications to the university community, VCU officials also articulated principles for the issuance of university pronouncements in response to national and global events.
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Reagan Biopic: “He Understood His Principles”
By Chris Braunlich
It has been 30 years since Ronald Reagan walked off the American political stage; two decades since he was laid to rest in the lengthening shadows of Simi Valley’s “golden hour.”
But with the coming August 30 release of the big-budget biographical film Reagan, he will again spring to life, albeit on screen. Americans will have an opportunity to remind themselves of what it was like to have a leader who deployed Irish bonhomie in the service of conservative ideas.
The Thomas Jefferson Institute is offering an opportunity to view the film on August 27, before its official release. Former Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner will be there to offer his unique “insider perspective” on the Reagan Administration and Reagan the man. Tickets and more information are available here.
Having seen an early, before-special-effects version, I can say the movie is worth watching, watching early, and promoting to friends.
Instead of pounding home a “message,” Reagan tells a story. And what a story it is: son of an alcoholic father, a movie star whose career dipped so low that at one point he was reduced to selling autographed photos from his home, Governor, and President, the film depicts Reagan’s life from age 11 to age 83.
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Dominion Acquires Wind Lease Adjacent to CVOW
The federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced today that Dominion Energy Virginia has successfully bid on the second wind energy lease area off Virginia Beach, the plot which is adjacent to, and further out to sea from, the Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project. If developed, along with the recently acquired North Carolina project, Dominion could one day have 6,000 megawatts of turbines (at peak production) covering more than 500 square miles of ocean.
The lease area adjacent to CVOW covers 176,000 acres (275 square miles) all by itself, and is comparable in size to the original CVOW. The lease area off Kitty Hawk is much smaller, about 40,000 acres. According to BOEM, Dominion bid more than $17 million for this newest acquisition. In its most recent integrated resource plan Dominion indicated it would begin to develop the second phase of CVOW as construction for the first phase wound up, and the Virginia Clean Economy Act envisioned the second phase, as well.
No plan or timeline for the North Carolina location has been announced. It has been hampered by local opposition to bringing the needed power lines ashore through Virginia Beach’s residential Sandbridge neighborhood. Some of the additional turbines will enjoy special consideration in front of the State Corporation Commission because of VCEA unless it is amended. But that law did not declare a full 6 gigawatts of offshore wind to be “in the public interest.”
A third-party energy developer, Equinor Wind US LLC, paid $75 million for a smaller, 101,000 acre lease area that sits further north near the Maryland-Delaware line. According to a report now up on Virginia Mercury, no firm bid against Dominion for the Virginia area lease but there was heavy bidding from several potential developers for the other site.
— Steve Haner
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Good Luck With That, Lame Duck
by James A. Bacon
The Joint Tax Subcommittee of the General Assembly is convening in Richmond today to discuss how to make Virginia’s tax code more “fair and equitable,” reports Michael Martz in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
When the Democrat-controlled legislature says it wants to make taxes more “fair and equitable,” it’s time to reach for your wallet. What’s “fair and equitable” to Democrats is rarely fair and equitable to you and me.
Martz informs us that unnamed “officials” say the tax code needs to fix the overreliance on income taxes, a top state income-tax bracket kicking in at $17,000, service-sector exemptions to the sales tax, and… and here’s the kicker… “the need to generate more money to pay for K-12 public education and the state’s share of Medicaid health care costs.”
Governor Glenn Youngkin is pressing for tax cuts, not tax increases. But House Finance Chair Vivian Watts, D-Fairfax, whom the RTD assures readers “prefers a long-term outlook,” accuses Youngkin of playing politics. “That’s the politics of the only state with a one-term governor,” she said. “You don’t do tax reform just for a political agenda.”
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Data Delayed Is Data Denied
by James A. Bacon
Last week I observed that the 2023 Crime in Virginia report, a compilation of the previous year’s crime statistics published by the Virginia State Police, used to come out in May. It is now August, and there’s still no sign of the document. The older the data gets, the more it loses relevance as a source for understanding current crime trends.
Now the Richmond Times-Dispatch reports that it is “unclear” when the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) will publish its annual update on public schools’ Standards of Learning (SOL) performance. In the past the document was released every August. According to the RTD, Superintendent of Public Instruction Lisa Coons notified school districts in June that the data would not be published until “the end of September,” although in response to the newspaper’s inquiry VDOE said the release could occur “much earlier.”
The Office of the Chief Medical Examiner typically publishes its annual report in August. The CMO’s annual review of some 20,000 deaths is crucial to understanding important trends from fatal drug overdoses to maternal mortality. There are still more than two weeks to go in the month, so there’s hope that the Youngkin administration can keep to its schedule on this one.
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Miscellaneous Musings
Hanover County teenagers are not that clueless
The members of the Pamunkey Regional Library (Hanover County has the most members) have gone to great lengths to assure that books with explicit sexual content are shelved in the adult section, rather than the “teen section.”
A recent phone call to the library confirmed that any teenager with a library card could check out books from any section of the library.
Striking a Nerve
Bacon’s Rebellion has run two articles (here and here) this year disclosing how some agencies, despite not spending all their capital maintenance reserve (MR) appropriations for many years and thereby building up large balances, continue to receive MR appropriations, which only add to their unspent balance. In the capital budget development instructions for the next budget cycle recently sent to agencies by the Dept. of Planning and Budget, the following admonition was included:
There will be an exercise this fall to better understand how well agencies are able to fully utilize their maintenance reserve funding. Although specifics on this exercise will be forthcoming, the amount of uncommitted maintenance reserve funding at an agency will be taken into account for agencies requesting additional capital funding for large maintenance-type projects.
This is the first time that this language, or anything similar to it, has appeared in the capital budget instructions and it could be viewed as a shot across the bow of agencies. However, if carried out as indicated, this exercise will be a waste of time. It seems that agencies will be asked to identify uncommitted MR funding. The capital project staff of any agency worth its salt could show that every dime of its MR balance is committed. For example, there is no doubt that the Dept. of Corrections can show its balance of more than $100 million “committed” to legitimate projects. Left unsaid will be the fact that it would likely take the agency 10 years to spend that amount of money on maintenance reserve projects.
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A Tax Question
The numbers in the following scenario are not necessarily based in reality. They are used to illustrate a point.
Mary Sue works as a housekeeper in a large hotel, cleaning guest rooms and changing bed linens. She makes $30,000 annually. Her employer deducts taxes, including Social Security, from her wages.
Susie Que waits on tables in a busy restaurant next door to the hotel. She makes $30,000 annually. Of that amount, $10,000 is from her base pay and $20,000 is from tips. Her employer deducts taxes, including Social Security, from her wages and tip income.
Both Presidential candidates have proposed excluding tip income from taxation. Why should Mary Sue have to pay taxes on all her income, while a good part of Susie Que’s income is excluded from taxation?
