Bacon's Rebellion

  • Don’t Let Data Centers Force a Virginia Government Shutdown

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by David J. Toscano

    A dog looking surprised while standing on a wooden floor, connected to a futuristic leash with a digital display that says 'GOOD BOY. WALK.'
    Image credit: Chat GPT

    [FLASH: Rumors are now circulating that House and Senate negotiators may be close to a budget deal. That is good news, but it still must pass both bodies and be signed by the governor by June 30]

    Want a good example of the “tail wagging the dog?” Look no further that this year’s budget process in Virginia. The “dog” is a $74 billion budget that needs to be passed by June 30 to avoid a government shutdown. The “tail” is the data center industry — and whether the state should end tax exemptions for the industry that otherwise expire in 2035. The proposed House budget did not change the exemption, and legislation to terminate the program failed during the regular session. Rather than wait for a new bill in a new session, Senate Democrats and Sen. Louise Lucas, a leading critic of the subsidies, inserted language into its budget to end the program, and proposed using the savings to increase spending in other areas. The House rejected that approach.

    Under our state constitution, Virginia government is not authorized to operate without a budget in place by July 1. While the General Assembly has failed to pass a budget by the end of its regular session in March 11 times since 2000, it has always met the fiscal year deadline. The closest call came in 2006, when Gov. Tim Kaine signed the budget on June 30. The House just canceled its plans to return to Richmond on June 18, and it is not clear when the budget impasse will be resolved.

    The data center trade off

    The state tax exemptions for the industry means $1.9 billion less in revenue is collected by the state this year. That is a significant sum, but it represents only about 2.6 percent of the $74 billion budget proposed by the House and endorsed by Gov. Abigail Spanberger, and pales by comparison to spending on education, local government and key services. Yet, it has become the driver of the budget impasse.

    (more…)

  • Surf’s Up! And So’s Exposure to Virginia Beach Taxpayers

    Posted on

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    sherlockj

    The biggest wave generated by the city’s Atlantic Park project is debt. The promised tax revenues aren’t sufficient yet to support it.

    by James C. Sherlock

    A surfer riding a wave, captured from inside the barrel of the wave, showcasing the vibrant blue water and a clear sky.
    Virginia Beach wave pool, keystone of the Atlantic Beach project. Image credit: Surfer Magazine

    From an article by Stacy Parker in The Virginian-Pilot this morning:

    To build two parking garages and improve streets in Atlantic Park, a public entity borrowed $53 million and agreed to pay off the loan with tax revenue generated from the project.

    The bill has come due, but the taxes aren’t adding up yet.

    Who knew?

    About that $53 million debt thing. The Official Statement prepared by the City of Virginia Beach, Virginia, on behalf of the City of Virginia Beach Development Authority (the “public entity” referenced by Ms. Parker) listed the debt:

    City Of Virginia Beach Development Authority

    • $33,435,000 Public Facility Revenue Bonds, Series 2024A
    • $27,225,000 Public Facility Refunding Revenue Bonds, Series 2024B
    • $128,070,000 Public Facility Revenue Bonds, Series 2024C (Federally Taxable)

    In 2024, this author wrote an 11-part series on the multiple scandals surrounding the Virginia Beach City Council’s actions to fund Atlantic Park.  Atlantic Park is comprised of:

    • the Dome entertainment venue and the parking garages owned by the city, from which it hopes to generate revenue,
    • all the steady revenue-generating assets like restaurants, shops, and apartments owned by a private development company,
    • a maybe-not-revenue-generating wave pool owned by a North Carolina nonprofit funded with state revenue bonds because neither the city nor the developers wanted any part of it.  

    In this case, as a Virginia Beach taxpayer, he did not wish to be right in his published prediction that the Development Authority would be unable to service the debt with project revenues.  

    It turns out he was prescient.

    (more…)

  • On the Table: Deleting Christmas as a Student Holiday in Fairfax Schools

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    by

    James A. Bacon

    Students in Fairfax County are in the classroom five days a week for less than half the school year. Instead of eliminating the administrative throwaway days that have created this problem, district leaders asked families whether they could eliminate Christmas and other holidays instead.

    by Stephanie Lundquist-Arora
    Republished with permission from IWFeatures

    This year, fewer than half of the school weeks in Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) are five-day weeks. The school calendar is interrupted with multiple days off that are coded as “teacher workday,” “staff development day,” “school planning day,” and “religious and cultural observance day.” There were also 12 “early release” days intended to give teachers more time for grading, planning, and training.

    Fairfax County Public Schools 2025-2026 Standard School Year Calendar, displaying monthly layouts from July 2025 to June 2026, indicating school days, holidays, and instructional periods.

    In response, parents in Virginia’s largest public school district are demanding more consistent instructional time for their children. School board members attest that they have received thousands of emails from parents about the school calendar. One of them, Melanie Meren, said, “Parents are seeking help. They want their kids in school for as many five-day school weeks as possible.”  

    (more…)

  • DPU Billing Mess: You Can’t Thrive Without Crossing the “T”

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Jon Baliles

    A tall building surrounded by flying papers marked with overdue utility bills, set against a clear blue sky.
    AI-generated image: Grok

    The city’s Department of Public Utilities had perhaps their worst week since the January 2025 water crisis this past week (the May boil water advisory is close) and, like the big crisis, it may last a while and require an after action report to figure out just what happened to keep it from happening again. We have commended Mayor Avula and DPU Director Scott Morris for righting the ship when it comes to the reliability of the water plant to function as intended and the city’s ability to keep the water flowing since the crisis. They took a deserved victory lap in January about how much progress had been made and the water plant endured through one the nastiest ice storms we have seen in decades (unlike the two inch snowstorm that brought the water plant down when less competent people were in charge).

    But just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, the city suffered another self-inflicted wound in the last month. They tried to get their error past the goalie without anyone getting wise, but the people of Richmond were watching and paying attention, as they usually are. Instead realizing the mistake and proactively dealing with the mess they created and get out ahead of it, the city tried to keep the problem silent. It began on May 21 when the city issued a press release about DPU transitioning to new back office systems “to improve customer service operations and streamline field service management for utility customers across the city.”

    You may recall back in November 2025 DPU was dealing with billing issues related to about 5,000 customers in Southside with faulty meter readings after new and updated meters had been installed. Chief Administrative Officer Odie Donald said issues and problems can always arise, but also pledged:

    “Our goal is to deliver best in class service to our customers. Service rises to elite status, when we proactively correct issues and our customers can have confidence that we will do what it takes to get it right. This small adjustment is the first step in building that transparency and trust with our customers.”

    (more…)

  • Spanberger Retreats on Weed Market to Get Budget

    Posted on

    by

    Steve Haner

    by Derrick A. Max

    Governor Abigail Spanberger announced her support for a deal to create a legal retail cannabis market in Virginia — only weeks after vetoing a bill to do much the same thing.

    That should give Virginians pause.

    Virginia has yet to pass a budget and is only two weeks from a government shutdown. While lawmakers were still deadlocked over the data center tax exemptions, the governor announced that she is now prepared to accept a retail marijuana market as a part of the budget package — weeks after vetoing a similar cannabis bill. That makes the proposal look less like a carefully crafted framework and more like a legislative sweetener to weaken the opposition of Senator L. Louise Lucas, who is both a vocal supporter of marijuana legalization and the owner of the Cannabis Outlet in Portsmouth, VA. 

    When the governor vetoed the earlier cannabis legislation, she said that the bill needed stronger protections for children, clearer enforcement authority, more resources for product testing and inspections, better tools to shut down illicit operators, and a regulatory system that would put public safety first.

    Those were not minor objections.

    Now, with a government shutdown threatened, the governor says those concerns have been sufficiently addressed. The new cannabis agreement would allow retail cannabis sales beginning in July 2027, authorize hundreds of retail licenses, increase the legal possession limit, impose new state and local taxes, regulate intoxicating hemp products, and direct some revenue toward education, substance-abuse prevention, public health, and equity programs.

    (more…)

  • Is Virginia Swimming Against the Tide on Illegal Immigration?

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Look what’s happening in Europe.

  • Paving the Way for Permanent Democratic Rule

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

  • School Abortion Claims Found Baseless

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    Following up on allegations made in a previous column in Bacon’s Rebellion, we bring an article in FFX Now to readers’ attention.

    A Senate committee and Virginia State Police have concluded their separate investigations into a Centreville High School teacher’s claims that school staff facilitated abortions without parental consent, Fairfax County Public Schools Superintendent Michelle Reid said this week.

    “Neither investigation found any evidence of wrongdoing or any need for further action,” Reid wrote in a letter to the school’s staff and families. 

    Teacher Zenaida Perez had alleged that staff had “helped the students, who were minors, obtain abortions without the consent of their parents or guardians—in violation of Virginia law—using school funds. “

    Note: The newspaper article does not contain links to either the U.S. Senate committee or Fairfax reports and relies upon Reid’s characterization of the findings.

  • Getting Control of Nursing Home and Autism-Treatment Chains

    Posted on

    by

    sherlockj

    Getting Control of Nursing Home and Autism-Treatment Chains

    by James C. Sherlock

    Virginia is awash with out-of-state nursing home and behavior-analysis chains operating as LLCs. Our state regulators know little to nothing about them and have no control over their presence in Virginia because they are not licensed by those regulators.

    The problems we are experiencing in both industries are centered on rogue chains.

    • Individual nursing homes are licensed, inspected, and regulated, but not their chains.
    • In the booming applied-behavioral analysis business, behavioral-health companies are not regulated at all, just individual providers. Physical behavioral-health centers are not even inspected. Telehealth services in general are a problem that DMAS is trying to address with individual providers. But chains employ a lot of them.

    After a dozen years of investigating major scandals in those industries, this author has concluded that Virginia must change course.

    The ongoing scandals in both industries indicate they must be brought under tighter regulation. A standard LLC

    • Can be owned by anyone;
    • Files a registration with the State Corporation Commission (SCC) Clerk’s office to do business in the state; and
    • Shields owners from the company’s general business debts and liabilities.

    Registration with the SCC provides little information about LLCs and none about their members.

    We will examine how the state might proceed to establish regulatory control of chains organized as LLCs in problematic medical services industries.

    (more…)

  • The Governor Knows How to Throw Some Sharp Elbows

    Posted on

    by

    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    by Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Governor Abigail Spanberger

    All governors have ceremonial “signing” events for legislation that has already been officially signed into law. The purpose is to highlight both the legislation and its patrons.

    On June 16, Gov. Spanberger had a ceremony in Richmond in which she signed a batch of bills relating to gun violence. As she signed each bill, she announced the bill number, the patron, and the purpose of the bill. After she signed it, she held it up for a photo op with the patron and presented the signed bill in a special folder, along with a ceremonial pen, to the beaming patron. The video of the entire ceremony, along with her opening remarks, can be found here. (The actual signings begin at about the 42:30 mark.)

    According to a report in the Virginia Political Newsletter, a member of Spanberger’s staff approached Sen. Mike Jones (D-Chesterfield) and Sen. Russert Perry (D-Fairfax), who were waiting in the audience, before the ceremony began and informed them that their bills (SB 727 and SB 160, respectively) would not be among the bills being “signed” by the governor that day. The reason was that both Senators had appeared with Sen. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth), chair of the Senate Finance Committee, at stops on her recent “listening tour” in which she tried to drum up public support for her proposal to repeal the sales tax exemption on equipment for data centers. The senators left the meeting before it began.

    This action does not have any effect on the legislation itself. The governor earlier officially signed them, and they will become law on July 1.  =But their patrons will not have a glossy photo of themselves with a beaming Gov. Spanberger holding up a copy of their bill.

  • Strangling the Goose

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    An elderly woman with silver hair is holding a large goose while sitting on a patterned rug. Surrounding her are several golden eggs scattered across the floor.
    We don’t need no stinkin’ golden eggs. AI-generated image credit: Grok

    Question posed to Microsoft CoPilot : How much tax revenue do data centers generate in Virginia? How is that revenue split between state and local government?

    Answer: State tax revenue from data centers: ≈ $1.5 billion annually

    The Northern Virginia Technology Council’s 2026 economic impact report finds that data centers contributed over $1.5 billion in annual state tax revenue in 2025.

    This includes:

    • Corporate income tax
    • State sales/use taxes except the exempted equipment
    • Individual income tax from data‑center employees
    • Other state‑level business taxes

    Local tax revenue: ≈ $1.3 billion (property taxes alone)

    The same NVTC report finds about $1.3 billion in local property taxes in Northern Virginia alone, even after incentives.

    (more…)

  • Virginia on the Brink

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Kerry Dougherty

    With Virginia’s top two Democrat females mud wrestling in Richmond, it’s time to think about what a Virginia state government shutdown might look like.

    With 13 days to get a budget, the unthinkable may actually happen: Virginia government may shut down because the Democrats fundamentally don’t like each other.

    None of us know exactly what to expect because it’s never happened before. Best of all, according to news reports, Gov. Abigail Spanberger has not made plans for the looming shutdown.

    This is what passes for Democrat leadership.

    It’s actually delicious. Democrats control both houses of the General Assembly and the Governor’s Mansion and it turns out they can’t govern.

    Frankly, I’m here for every minute of the rancor. The primary division is on the issue of tax breaks for data centers. The governor supports them, so does Speaker of the House of Delegates, Don Scott. Continue reading.

  • Virginia Democrats Are in Serious Trouble

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    State Senator Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth) announces a Democratic “Civil War” over the budget, while nationally Democrats aren’t exactly pivoting well.

    A giant blue donkey with a radioactive symbol stands menacingly in a chaotic urban setting, while panicked people flee from it in terror.
    Image credit: Chat GPT

    by Shaun Kenney

    Let’s start with the basics.

    As of this moment, the generic congressional ballot is D+5. Which isn’t great for Republicans. Yet when compared to other midterm elections? Democrats enjoyed a D+10 environment in 2018 and a D+11 environment in 2006.

    This is the problem with the race to the bottom. For as radioactive as Democrats have made Trump in the public eye, ignored is the fact that the only thing more unpopular than Trump in the eyes of the American public are the Democrats themselves. Unwilling or unable to sideline their own progressive base, Democrats have to hope that they can convince enough people that Republicans are slightly more dangerous and crazy.

    Which is — of course — dangerous and crazy.

    In the pages of The Atlantic, whose contempt for intellectual insight is seconded only by its devotion to the partisan screed, the navel gazers are still amazed and in wonderment that the tagline “save democracy!” simply isn’t convincing middle America:

    (more…)

  • Blue on Blue: Scott vs Lucas

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

  • Judge Denies Motion to Compel Abigail Spanberger to Testify in Defamation Case

    Posted on

    by

    James A. Bacon

    by Tyler O’Neil

    A Richmond judge denied two motions against the Democrat Party of Virginia and Gov. Abigail Spanberger Monday in a defamation case, and the plaintiff told the Daily Signal that he plans to appeal the decisions.

    “I will be appealing these decisions,” Thomas Speciale, a retired Army intelligence officer and a former Republican U.S. Senate candidate, told the Daily Signal outside the courtroom of the Richmond City Circuit Court.

    Speciale sued the Democratic Party of Virginia for allegedly defaming him. The party issued a press release on Nov. 3, 2022, claiming that Speciale “attacked the U.S. Capitol” on Jan. 6, 2021, and suggesting that he “bloodied and beat law enforcement officers.” Speciale, who vehemently contests both claims, sued in 2023, and in the course of discovery, he found that then-U.S. Rep. Abigail Spanberger’s 2022 reelection campaign had drafted the press release.

    “The press release defames me, stating that I was a ‘notable insurrectionist who attacked the United States Capitol’ and that I ‘bloodied and beat law enforcement,’” Speciale previously told the Daily Signal. “The truth is the exact opposite—I was warning the government of possible violence at the National Counterterrorism Center and the FBI, and I was there trying to stop potential violence on January 6th.”

    (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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