Bacon's Rebellion

We need more money. Leaders of the mendicant Washington Metro system met last week to discuss how to keep alive the regional rail and bus system. Abandoning the pipe dream of adding more money-losing routes to the money-losing system, the emerging consensus is to make the existing system more efficient. “Automation is how we get world-class transit,” said Nick Donohue, a former Virginia deputy secretary of transportation who held run the discussion. Such thinking is a step forward conceptually. Just one problem: Automation would cost $5.6 billion, with half coming in theory from federal grants and the rest funded by local jurisdictions over 15 to 20 years, according to the Washington Post. Good luck with that. Especially when the president of the Amalgamated Transit Union called the plan “dangerous, expensive and reckless.”

We don’t want your stinkin’ money. According to Inside Climate News, grassroots opposition to tax-generating data centers has blocked $900 million in projects in Virginia and delayed another $46 billion. Yes, billion with a b. The newsletter notes that data-center foes have teamed up with other conservation groups called the Virginia Data Center Reform Coalition. Data-center facilities themselves are innocuous. The problem is that they consume massive amounts of electricity, which will requiring upgrades to generating capacity and the electric grid, which in turn will mean higher electric bills for everyone (not to mention more transmission-line upgrades that everyone in their path hates). Virginia is already home to 13% of the world’s data-center capacity, and continued expansion of the industry represents a once-in-a-generation economic development opportunity. But geographically, the tax-revenue and employment benefits of data centers are highly concentrated, while the cost of electricity upgrades are dispersed. Until the unequal distribution of costs and benefits can be worked out, expect opposition to grow.

Speaking of things that will never happen… Winsome Earle-Sears, the Republican candidate for governor, opined in a commencement address at the Fishburne Military School that she wants to give Virginia parents as many educational options for their children as possible. That includes more charter schools (of which Virginia has only seven), more virtual schools, and more home schools. “Parents should be able to make the decision,” she said. “They know their children. The American dream is about options.” I agree 100 percent. Unfortunately, Democratic legislators and the educational lobby don’t. They are committed to maintaining public schools’ near-monopoly with all the opportunity they create for political patronage, social engineering and student indoctrination. In a February press release, Democratic candidate Abigail Spanberger called for more funding, more staff, and higher teacher pay — rewarding a key Democratic Party constituency while doing nothing to address collapsing standards and low expectations. It’s fine for Earle-Sears to advocate alternatives to failed schools, but public schools still educate roughly 90% of Virginia students. She needs to push harder on what Dems are doing wrong and what she would do differently.