Emotions were flaring in Hampton Roads yesterday in advance of today’s meeting of the Hampton Roads Transportation Authority, which is expected to approve an estimated $175 million in regional taxes to fund long lobbied-for transportation projects. It seems that some citizens are tired of getting taxed.
During a three-hour hearing at the Virginia Beach Civic Center, reports the Daily Press, business interests defended the tax increases. Rob Goodwin, president of Virginia Beach Vision, a group of civic and business leaders, argued that traffic delays are raising the costs of doing business in the region, which increases the prices of all goods and services.”We need to be able to move in, out and about the community,” Goodwin said. “You’re paying for these delays one way or the other.”
The Road Gang contended that traffic bottlenecks would hamper emergency evacuations of Hampton Roads in the event of hurricanes, make the ports less competitive, and routinely slow the response times of ambulances, fire trucks and police cars.
But those arguments didn’t carry much weight with ordinary citizen George Donley: “I don’t have any more to give you. I’m at wit’s end. I’ve got lint left. I’ll give you that.”
Suffolk resident Roger Leonard spoke a profound truth when urging the Authority to turn the plan back to the General Assembly. He asked business leaders if they would be so supportive if the package included a commercial real estate tax or a levy on shipping containers. “That’s not happening,” Leonard said, “because they have better lawyers and lobbyists than the rest of us.”
Here’s the way I’m reading the situation: Hampton Roads politicians used citizen frustration with traffic congestion to mobilize support for creation of the HRTA and the increase in taxes. But the lawyers, lobbyists and their political buddies will have disproportionate influence over how those monies are spent. Go back and read our blog post, “Millions for Transportation, Pennies for Congestion Relief,” where we cited the arguments of Stewart Schwartz, executive director of the Coalition for Smarter Growth. Several of the mega-projects on the drawing boards are geared to economic development, he said, and will do as much to promote congestion as to relieve it.
Here’s the Suffolk News Herald coverage. And the Virginian Pilot’s.
Addendum: Here, from the Pilot, is the dog’s breakfast of “revenue enhancements” through which the citizenry will pay for improvements advocated by the business community:
- $10 increase in the annual vehicle registration fee, raising it to $49.5 for cars. Would raise $13.3 million annually by 2009.
- A new titling fee equal to 1 percent of a vehicle’s value would be charged when the ownership changes. Would raise $41.2 million.
- $10 increase in the annual vehicle safety inspection fee, raising it to $26. Would raise $12.3 million.
- 5 percent tax on automotive repair labor bills. Would raise $18.9 million.
- An increase in grantor’s tax from 10 cents per $100 of a sold house’s value to 50 cents per $100. Would raise $49.1 million.
- 2 percent sales tax on motor fuel. Would raise $30.2 million.
- 2 percent tax on vehicle rentals. Would raise $3.5 million
As Fredric Bastiat said, “Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.”
