Bacon's Rebellion

  • Congratulations, Virginia, You’re Now a High Tax State.

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    James A. Bacon

    States with the highest state-local tax burdens in calendar year 2022.

    As the debate plays out over Governor Glenn Youngkin’s tax restructuring plan, which includes $1 billion in tax relief over the next budget biennium, rest assured that the opposition party will attack it as a heartless attack on poor and marginalized Virginians with their illimitable unmet needs. In that context, it is worth remembering Virginia’s slow drift from a lower tax/high-growth state into a high tax/slower growth state over the past three decades, and asking if the higher taxes have made life any better.

    According to the Tax Foundation, state and local taxes took 12.5% of Virginia’s net product in calendar year 2022 — the eighth-highest percentage among the 50 states. Within living memory, Virginia’s tax burden was in the second-to-bottom quintile. Today we’re in the top quintile. We’re now officially a high-tax state. (more…)

  • How Not To Do Tax Reform. Again.

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    Steve Haner

    By Steve Haner

    According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, Governor Glenn Youngkin’s administration had its first formal discussion with Virginia’s local governments about eliminating their car tax collections two days after he announced it publicly.

    The General Assembly convenes Wednesday and if there is a plan to replace the $2.8 billion in local government revenue raised by that tax source, it has not surfaced. Voters truly detest the local levy, mainly because it is one of the few taxes everybody pays by check or with a credit card, but at this point it is safe to assume the idea is dead in the water. (more…)

  • Republican Rock Star Campaigns with Kiggans

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    Bob Rayner

    Rep. Jen Kiggans in Virginia Beach. (Photo by Kathy Sargent)

    by Kerry Dougherty

    An enthusiastic, overflow crowd crammed into a ballroom at the Marriott Oceanfront on 42nd Street Sunday afternoon to kick off Rep. Jen Kiggans’ re-election campaign. I’m not good at crowd estimates – plus I’m short and didn’t have a good vantage point – but there had to be 500 or more people in the room.

    Present was a who’s who of GOP Virginia politicians from former Governors George Allen – who introduced Kiggans – and Bob McDonnell to Attorney General Jason Miyares, former members of Congress Thelma Drake and Randy Forbes and former Del. Glenn Davis, who resigned his seat in the General Assembly to become Director of the Virginia’s Department  of Energy, Del. Barry Knight and Sen.-elect Danny Diggs.

    Kiggans ticked off an impressive litany of bills passed by the slim Republican majority in the House, including one that would have stemmed the flow of immigrants entering the country illegally.

    “We used to call it a crisis on our Southern border,” Kiggans said, “Now we call it a catastrophe.”

    Kiggans noted that the 2nd District seat was one of just six that the GOP managed to flip in 2022 to take control of the House. The Democrats desperately want to flip her seat back into the D column next year and have been running negative ads against Kiggans since last summer. The congresswoman said she hates the “lies” that are told about her, but is willing to take the abuse to continue serving the 2nd District. (more…)

  • Rent Control Bill Introduced in Virginia

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    Bob Rayner

    by Hans Bader

    A just-introduced Virginia bill, HB 192, would limit rent increases to “one percent over the Consumer Price Index” in places where the rental vacancy rate is “less than 10 percent,” if the “Consumer Price Index … is greater than five percent.” Virginia has a rental vacancy rate of about 4%, well below 10%, so effectively, this would be a statewide rent control law.

    The bill does not allow larger rent increases even to pay for things like major capital improvements.

    The bill, introduced by Democratic Del. Marty Martinez, is called the “Landlord and Tenant Fairness Act.”  It contains this rent-control provision:

    C. If the rental vacancy rate for a locality is less than 10 percent during the previous calendar year and the Consumer Price Index as reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor is greater than five percent, any rent increase imposed by a landlord shall be no greater than one percent over the Consumer Price Index.

    (more…)

  • Richmond’s Meals Tax Disaster

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    by

    Bob Rayner

    Richmond Mayor Levar Stoney

    by Jon Baliles

    (These reports were published first by RVA 5×5 and are republished here with permission.)

    Starting about 25 years ago, Richmond’s restaurant scene began its ascent into the local consciousness as our region’s favorite (and only) professional sport. Offerings expanded and ventured into new directions and opened peoples eyes and expanded our tastes; it drove creative chefs to new heights, and we appeared in list after list of publications that officially put Richmond on the foodie map.

    It was also, ironically, not long after that when restaurants became the “Sherpa” of sorts to help fill the city coffers. In 2003, City Council approved a one cent meals tax increase from five cents to six cents to help fund the renovation of Centerstage downtown. Many restauranteurs opposed the funding of an arts center on the backs of their customers by raising the pass through tax to fund one specific project. That deal later was overhauled and refinanced in 2006, but the one cent increase was not repealed as had been promised and it remained on the books as a permanent source of revenue to fund other city needs.

    Then fast forward to early 2018 when Mayor Stoney pushed for a 25% increase in the city’s meals tax from six cents to 7.5 cents. It was a highly contentious debate that rightly riled up many restauranteurs who once again saw it as an unfair burden on their businesses alone that made their patrons’ bills higher with each bite and drink. They argued for another funding solution that was fair and spread across the city and not just on their industry. (more…)

  • Jeanine’s Memes

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    James A. Bacon

    From The Bull Elephant

  • Surprise Findings About Metro Derailment

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    Bob Rayner

    by Bill Tracy

    In Northern Virginia on Friday, the National Transportation Safety Board released a scathing final report on the Washington area Metro’s derailment problem with its newer. 7000-Series railcars.  The NTSB’s media presentation by Chair Jennifer Homendy can be found on YouTube.   NTSB also faulted Metro’s safety culture.

    My prior layman’s understanding, from local news coverage, had been that Metro (aka WMATA) had no idea what was causing the derailment problem.

    I was dumbfounded to learn that since 2014, WMATA has been aware of the wheel “migration” problem on its railcars. In hindsight, WMATA had not been designing the Metro railcars with adequate “press force” of the wheels onto the axles. This problem allows some railcar wheels, over time, to spread out — wider than the tracks — causing derailments. About two-thirds of the 748 new 7000-Series railcars were built with an inadequate press force spec, before the spec was updated by WMATA. As expected, it was one of the earlier 7000-series cars that derailed in Arlington in 2021, causing all of the new 7000-series cars to be taken out of service.

    The fix is to re-build the wheel sets of the earlier 7000-series cars to bring them up to the new standard, presumably at great expense. WMATA is trying to blame the manufacturer, Kawasaki, for the issue. Kawasaki, however, reports that they built the railcars to final specs requested by Metro-WMATA. The courts will presumably have to settle the “who pays” issue. (more…)

  • Pleasure Activism at JMU’s Queer Teach-In

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    James A. Bacon

    by Stu Smith

    On October 4th 2023, Adrienne Maree Brown presented her work on Pleasure Activism at JMU as part of a Queer Teach-in. This Teach-in was hosted by JMU’s Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department. As you will soon hear from JMU’s Coordinator for Cultural and Affinity Spaces, Kwyn Riley, “This conversation serves as the nucleus of the Queer resistance teach-in.” But first, how about we hear from the keynote speaker, Adrienne Maree Brown?

    I’m sure most of y’all are at a total loss for words. This is who James Madison University parades out to speak to young and impressionable minds. I think the footage speaks for itself and I frankly don’t have too much to say. To me it is clear that Pleasure Activism is just Hedonism under a Social Justice lens. As a history lover, I always wonder what the namesakes and founders of these universities would think of situations like this. I can’t recall any of Madison’s thoughts on pleasure, but his ol’ pal, Thomas Jefferson said this…

    “Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.” (more…)

  • Bacon Meme of the Week

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    James A. Bacon

  • Look What UVA Is Hiding

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Acting on behalf of The Jefferson Council, Walter Smith has filed a complaint in Henrico County against the University of Virginia, seeking a remedy for its refusal to supply documents under the Freedom of Information Act. Smith serves in a volunteer capacity as chair of the Council’s research committee.

    The suit alleges 14 instances in which the University’s FOIA staff improperly denied emails and other documents to the Council. Smith’s FOIA requests asked for documents that would shed light on the inner workings of the University’s administrative decision-making process.

    The cases highlighted in the complaint illustrate two main themes. First, UVA’s FOIA lawyers have stretched the presidential “working papers” exemption beyond its original intent of protecting the university president’s personal deliberations. Second, the lawyers did not apply privacy protections to Bert Ellis, a Board of Visitors member who was widely perceived as a threat to the university status quo.

    “UVa’s FOIA process seems designed to delay and discourage and deny inquiries that may be embarrassing to the Ryan administration,” said Smith. “The administration says it’s all for open inquiry. These are matters of legitimate interest to the public. It seems hypocritical to hide so much.” (more…)

  • Hey Virginia: Hands Off Those Cake Pops

    Posted on

    by

    Bob Rayner

    Photo courtesy of Kelly Phillips

    by Kerry Dougherty

    There’s a reason Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s approval rating in the latest Mason-Dixon Poll perches at a lofty 58 percent in this once-blue state, despite Republicans losing control of the legislature in November’s election.

    Youngkin gets it.

    On X, he wrote:

    “We’re going to fix this, Virginia will always be the best place to live, work, and bake cake pops!”

    Like everyone else who heard about Kelly Phillips’ cake pop conflict, the governor immediately saw this for what it was: one more example of government overreach, punishing an enterprising Richmond woman with a small business for no good reason or public benefit.

    According to The Virginia Mercury, cake pops are Ms. Phillips’ side hustle. Her day job is as a manager in a financial planning firm. But what began simply as irresistible treats she made for birthday parties and baby showers grew into a little cottage business.

    Phillips now sells her gorgeously decorated confections mostly at craft fairs. If Richmond regulators have their way, she’ll have to stop.

    Virginia’s stringent food safety regulations, designed to protect folks from unsanitary practices, make exceptions for small craft bakeries. But ridiculous regs, such as the one that allows these homemade goodies to be sold at farmer’s markets but not craft fairs make absolutely no sense.

    “What is the difference between a farmers market and a craft show?” Phillips asked The Mercury.

    Gee, I don’t know. A roof? (more…)

  • Not Every Teacher’s Salary Can Be Above Average

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    Bob Rayner

    by Hans Bader

    In the mythical Lake Wobegon, all the children are above average. But in real life, half of all people have to be below average, by definition. Half of all people are paid below average, especially in counties with very low living costs, where the vast majority of people are paid below the national average.

    Still, no teachers union likes its members to be paid below average, even when they live in areas where the cost of living is below the national average, like Richmond, Amherst, Lynchburg, Roanoke, Harrisonburg, Staunton, or Waynesboro.

    Nadarius Clark, a Democratic Virginia delegate, has introduced House Bill 187, which would require Virginia teachers to be paid at or above the national average for teachers. The bill “requires that public school teachers be compensated at a rate that is at or above the national average teacher salary…. ” The bill also requires that public school instructional and non-instructional support staff be compensated at a rate that is “at or above the national average salary for such staff.”

    It is a bad idea for states to pass such laws. If every state passed such a law, teacher pay would be higher than for any other profession, and increase toward infinity, because states would be constantly increasing their teachers’ pay relative to other states so as not to be below the national average, and yet, many states would never reach the national average, due to other states increasing teacher pay first. (By definition, half of all states are going to be below average.) (more…)

  • What Does UVA Need in a University President?

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    For anyone following governance issues at the University of Virginia, Bill Ackman’s Twitter broadside against Harvard’s now- dethroned president Claudine Gay and its governing board is must reading. Ackman, the hedge-fund manager-turned-activist who spearheaded Gay’s overthrow, identifies serious systemic problems at Harvard, from its ponderous DEI bureaucracy to a tuition policy that prices out the middle class.

    Every one of the pathologies he describes at Harvard plays out at UVA (although, one can argue, in diluted form). Little of this is new to readers of The Jefferson Council blog, for we have been documenting the problems for two years. But Ackman raises one point that we have not considered: what qualifications should a governing board look for in a university president?

    The question might seem academic, but UVa President Jim Ryan is surely feeling nervous these days. As dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education before ascending to his position at UVA, he is a product of the same hyper-progressive Harvard culture as Gay. And Liz Magill, the University of Pennsylvania president who was sacked after her abysmal testimony before Congress, was Ryan’s hand-picked provost for UVa before she moved on to the Ivy League. Ryan is less politically tone deaf, to be sure. He is popular among UVA students and faculty, and he has said all the right things regarding free speech and institutional neutrality. No one in authority has publicly called for his resignation. Even The Jefferson Council, as critical as it has been of UVA under Ryan’s tenure, has taken no position on whether he should stay or go.

    Nevertheless, it is worth asking the question, in light of the presidential de-fenestrations at Harvard and Penn: what should an elite university look for in a president? (more…)

  • Nooses, Masks and Double Standards

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    In the fall of 2022 a furtive figure was caught on videotape draping a noose around the Homer statue on the Grounds of the University of Virginia. The university administration immediately declared the act a hate crime. University police launched an investigation, enlisting the FBI to help in the search for the perpetrator. A $10,000 award was offered to anyone who could provide more information.

    “The facts available indicate that this was an act intended to intimidate members of this community,” said President Jim Ryan in a letter to the community. “A noose is a recognizable and well-known symbol of violence, most closely associated with the racially motivated lynching of African Americans.”

    A noose hung from a tree branch is indeed a recognizable symbol of lynching. The meaning when hung around the neck of a statue of an ancient Greek poet, however, was not self-evident (as we noted at the time). Indeed, when the offender was discovered, it turned out he hadn’t been targeting African Americans at all. Irate at how the Homer statue placed a hand on the head of a naked youth, the Albemarle County man declared that it “glorified pedophilia.” Local authorities charged him with intimidation anyway.

    That was then.

    Photo credit: WUVAnews.com

    The day after Hamas’ October 7 terrorist assault on Israel, the Students for Justice in Palestine at UVA issued a statement  declaring that “colonized people” had the right to resist oppression “by whatever means they deem necessary.” A poster promoting the October 12 march showed a Hamas bulldozer plowing through an Israeli security fence. “Decolonization is not a metaphor,” the poster said. Later that month, SJP held two rallies on the Grounds. Marchers waved Palestinian flags and chanted, “Palestine will be free, from the river to the sea.” Some insisted that the slogan was just a call for solidarity with oppressed Palestinians, but many Jews interpreted it as advocating the eradication of the Israeli state and, in the context of the Hamas massacres, the slaughter of the Jewish population.
    (more…)

  • A Hostile Environment for Jews

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    James A. Bacon

    by James A. Bacon

    Matan Goldstein is a rarity at the University of Virginia — a Jewish student unafraid to openly defend Israel in its war with Hamas and oppose Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a pro-Palestinian group that praised Hamas’ October 7 terror attacks on Israeli citizens. The Israeli student has appeared on local talk radio and published an op-ed in the local newspaper. He wears a kippah, openly identifying himself as a Jew, and he was one of the two students who waved an Israeli flag on the steps of the Rotunda during an SJP rally. 

    Goldstein, who was drawn to UVa by its classics program, was surprised upon coming to Charlottesville by the prevalence of antisemitism and the impotent handwringing of the UVa administration in dealing with it. University officials have declined to criticize the eliminationist rhetoric of pro-Palestinian students and faculty. Instead, the University has created a religious diversity task force to investigate discrimination against Jews… and Muslims… and other religions. Two of the eleven task-force members had signed a faculty letter faulting Ryan for his failure to sufficiently acknowledge the suffering of the Palestinians.

    Goldstein’s account is echoed by other members of UVa’s Jewish community contacted by The Jefferson Council, although he was the only one willing to speak on the record. A law school student spoke off the record, while parents, alumni, a professor and a rabbi conveyed the sentiments of many other Jewish students whom I was unable to contact for first-hand accounts. Jewish students are so reticent to speak publicly that the signatories to a letter in The Cavalier Daily identified themselves only as “a group of Jewish students.”

    During his first-year orientation in September, Goldstein participated in a group discussion in which students told others about themselves. He mentioned that he was Israeli. A classmate, a student from Egypt, spoke up. He said he was angry at the Jewish state and the Israeli Defense Force. He thought Abdul Gamal Nasser, an Egyptian dictator who sought to destroy Israel in the Six Day War, was a hero. “He said we could never be friends.” (more…)

Now Available

Book cover of 'Dust Mites: A Second American Revolution' by James A. Bacon, featuring astronauts planting a flag with a blue and white emblem on a lunar landscape, with Earth visible in the background.
For sale on Amazon.com

The year: 2075. The American colonies on the Moon are getting restless under Washington’s tyrannical rule….

This second edition of “Dust Mites” has a snazzy new cover, includes helpful lunar maps, and is 5,000 words tighter than the original. The sequel, “Trogs,” is scheduled for publication this summer.

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Bacon’s Rebellion is Virginia’s leading politically non-aligned portal for news, opinions and analysis about state, regional and local public policy. Read more about us here.

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