Time to look at the Tobacco Commission again
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6 responses to “Time to look at the Tobacco Commission again”
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Steve, Good piece. When I worked at Virginia Business nearly 20 years ago with Jim Bacon we did a lengthy story on the commission. I can’t find the link, but here is a later piece I did on it for the Post:
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As usual, your piece is better. I didn’t take the time to do much research. Interesting that our headlines are so similar.
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Good article Dick and … Peter….
One would think that distributing these funds would be a no-brainer. That they should go to pay for health care or education for the rural counties. The nexus to health care to me is stronger than the nexus to economic development … the “settlement money” is basically intended to make amends for the impacts that tobacco smoking had on people – and diverting it from health care to sketchy economic development has a bad, scandal like feel to it.
What NOT use it to reduce the Medicaid bite in the budget?
or why NOT use it to fund college for kids from rural areas?
anytime I see loose money and folks with economic development “ideas” for it – I shiver because the outcome is fairly predictable.
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Good overview, Dick. The Tobacco Commission could have done so much good for Southside and Southwest Virginia. Sadly, it became in part a source of patronage for local legislators, so for years the investments never added up to much.
The Commission does have a “strategic plan” now that outlines investment priorities, which include:
– education and workforce development
– infrastructure (primarily broadband and industrial sites)
– entrepreneurship
– access to healthcare
– cultural and recreational assets that will attract visitors from outside the regionsThis is an unimaginative but defensible set of priorities. It would be interesting to see how well grants match up to these priorities.
There is one big flaw in the way the Commission is structured. The incentives are strong to spread the grants over the entire region, giving every jurisdiction its piece of the pie. Invariably, that means funding many projects with lower Return on Investment. I would argue that the Commission needs to concentrate its investments to grow the region’s smaller urban centers. The single biggest thing the region can do to transform itself is to concentrate its population. Micropolitan areas have consistently enjoyed positive rates of job creation. Small metros have enjoyed higher rates of job creation than micropolitan areas. If the region can evolve from a predominantly rural (extremely low density) population to a micropolitan or small metro population, it can increase the size and depth of its labor pools and improve its attractiveness to outside corporate investment. While some localities would benefit, however, others wouldn’t get their “fair share.” Therefore, it will never happen.
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The Virginia Way meets the last vestiges of the Byrd Machine.
1. The people who grew the plants that became the cancer sticks which still kill 480,000 Americans per year (per the CDC) needed to be compensated. Why?
2. The politicians who took over the funds turned out to be criminals. What’s new?
3. The distribution of funds was incompetent and used more to buy votes in rural Virginia rather than create any real economic benefit.
4. The General Assembly remains asleep at the switch while the money is wasted on one half assed scheme after another. -
5. – these are the same fools who supposedly are in charge of the Budget for the State!
There MUST be SOME adults in the GA… perhaps they’re in charge of the things that matter and they leave things like the Tobacco Commission for the miscreants to busy themselves.
I sure as hell don’t want he folks in charge of the Tobacco Commission also involved in anything of importance for the state…
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