Bacon's Rebellion

The Washington Post Can’t Wait to Raise Your Taxes

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by

James A. Bacon
in

Well folks, no surprise here. The Washington Post is wasting no time–they’re already on record supporting Chichester’s proposed tax increase next year.

“Taxes, fees, tolls — all must be in the mix if Virginia is to keep moving. Senate Finance Committee Chairman John H. Chichester (R-Northumberland) said that this year’s “minuscule” compromise “isn’t even a beginning toward the solution to our transportation dilemma.” After the fall House elections, Mr. Chichester plans to push for a package of so-far unspecified taxes, probably including a much-needed increase in the gas tax. If candidates continue to paper over the severity of congestion and its economic consequences, voters should demand some truthful responses.”

How come we only hear talk of tax increases and we never hear anything about the need for government accountability? You still have the Wilder Commission report gathering dust and no one is talking about implementing some of its recommendations to reduce the massive fraud, waste, and abuse that goes on in most government programs.

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  1. veritas Avatar
    veritas

    Hey there – cruising around the Internet and saw your site – check out mine!

    http://iraqpictures.blogspot.com/

    -Rachael-

  2. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Very cool website, Rachael. It doesn’t have anything to do with Virginia politics, but I’d recommend it to anybody interested in what’s happening in Iraq.

  3. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    “Taxes, fees, tolls — all must be in the mix if Virginia is to keep moving.” So says the WaPo editorial page.

    How about reforming VDOT maintenance strategies? How about changing land use patterns? How about encouraging transportation demand management strategies such tele-work and ride sharing? The Post doesn’t even consider these options as possibilities and, then, upon reflection dismiss them. It acts as if such alternatives do not even exist.

    The only possibility these brain dead scribblers can imagine is spending more money. Pretty pathetic for one of the world’s leading newspapers.

  4. Phil Rodokanakis Avatar
    Phil Rodokanakis

    You got it, Jim! “Spend, spend, spend” seems to be the only answer.

    The fact that VDOT continues to rack 216% cost overruns or that VDOT manages one of the largest state road networks (although VA is nowhere as large as some other states), scream for reform in the way we do business. Yet the only solution that’s being talked about is to spend more money.

    You’re right, Rachel’s Iraq photo-blog is impressive, indeed.

  5. Paul Avatar
    Paul

    Aren’t we already changing land use patterns? For example, in Arlington (where I live) the old crappy post-war neighborhoods are being bulldozed and replaced with high density housing – sometimes townhouses, sometimes high rise apartments. It’s happening in Rosslyn, Courthouse, Clarendon, and especially Ballston.

    Whether these types of developments will ever attract families is a tough one to call…right now, young professionals seem to be dominating these new developments.

  6. Jim Bacon Avatar
    Jim Bacon

    Yes, land use patterns are naturally evolving. There are two questions that follow upon your observation: (1) Are they evolving in the right direction? Yes, from a transportation perspective, denser development is better. But “denser” by itself is not the solution. There must be a balanced mix of land uses as well — residential, commercial and retail — and the development must accommodate alternative transportation modes such as walking, biking and mass transit. In all likelihood, Arlington “gets it” and is moving in the right direction. But that’s not necessarily the case with other localities.

    (2) Is the evolution in land use towards more rational developmen tpatterns occurring BECAUSE OF or IN SPITE OF local and state policies? Can state and local policy accelerate the process, or is it inhibiting the process? Increasingly, especially in the Richmond area, planners are nudging development in a positive direction. But I see no sign that the powers in the General Assembly are giving any thought to what the state should be doing.

  7. Will Vehrs Avatar
    Will Vehrs

    Look at my post, “Website Facades.” The future officeholders in this Commonwealth would rather drive 100 miles to eat rubber chicken with 25 Rotarians and “deadhead” back than answer 25 emails sent to their website or produce a newsletter that could go out to every Rotarian in the state. With that kind of thinking, is it any wonder we get the same old tax for more asphalt solutions?

  8. Phil Rodokanakis Avatar
    Phil Rodokanakis

    Yes but Will, you can’t replace face-time with electronic newsleters. People won’t vote for you because they got your electronic newsletter. They vote for you because they got to know you–this is particularly true in local races–or they like your campaign platform.

  9. Will Vehrs Avatar
    Will Vehrs

    I don’t disagree, Phil, but the real trick is to combine the internet/electronic campaign with the pressing of the flesh/personal contact campaign. You let people know where the candidate will be, you set “meet-ups” …

  10. Phil Rodokanakis Avatar
    Phil Rodokanakis

    Will: I agree. One of the most successful candidates to take advantage of the online medium has been Sen. Ken Cuccinelli. During his campaign he was mailing out TV and radio ads to his electronic mailing list, produced a CD-ROM on putting forth his proposals for solving the transportation gridlock without raising taxes, set up online surveys, and used just about every online tool I could think off. Of course, I may be a bit biased given that I was closely involved with the campaign and managed some of its electronic communications.

  11. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I know that telecommuting can work, because I did it for three years. However it takes special workers, special bosses, and special conditions with regard to the work being performed. I think we can do a lot more in this area.

    Ride sharing can work a lot better than it does, too. It seems to me that here is an issue of knowlege “How do I find someone that is compatible, convenient, and safe, at a fair price?”

    Then we have to evaluate the benefits carefully. How much of the value of rideshareing would be lost to additional trips made due to the loss of trip chaining? Those two issues are things we can encourage with out damage to others.

    We are changing land use patterns, partly as a result of the changing relationships between housing costs, transportation travel time and costs, and employment patterns. These changes occur at a glacial pace, which is still twice as fast and more efficient than VDOT moves. We don’t even know what the results are yet: what happened to all those people that lived in the crappy post-war housing? For that matter, what happened to the people that lived in formerly decent SFH’s?

    I don’t see that Metro can support much more transit oriented development, and it has built in inefficiencies that cannot be overcome. It is becoming increasingly clear that it suffers from all the same criticisms and the same kinds of congestion that highway transit endures.

    What we see as a failure in transportation systems we may be more of a mismatch due to timing as much as anything. In any other business enterprise we would consider congestion to be a sign of wild success.

    If that is the case it will always be more or less out of whack due to timiing, it not imply that there is anything wrong with what we are doing other than we failed in anticipating the results of our previous efforts: planning has never had a very good history.

    That being the case, who is to say what is the “right” direction? Didn’t we once have communities that depended on walking and biking and carting our goods everywhere? Does anyone seriously suggest that we go back to something that looks like the Garment District or Fez?

    Unlike telecommuting and ride-sharing, I don’t see that is a situation that is going to be enhanced by encouragement, and anything resembling force is going to be met with strong resistance – from both sides.

    Ray Hyde
    Delaplane Va

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