Author: James A. Bacon
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Northam Proposes Another $145 Million Giveaway
by James A, Bacon The spending avalanche keeps building. Governor Ralph Northam now is proposing to spend $145 million in the next two-year budget to make tuition-free community college available to “low- and middle-income” students who pursue jobs in high-demand fields. The Governor’s “Get Skilled, Get a Job, Give Back” (G3) program would cover tuition,…
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The Gas Boom Is Over
By Peter Galuszka The boom in shale natural gas is over, reports The New York Times. The trend raises more questions about billions of dollars worth of gas-related projects in Virginia, including Dominion’s plans to build the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and other firms’ efforts to place two big generating stations near Charles City. The boom…
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Watch Out, Here Comes the Transportation and Climate Initiative
by James A. Bacon A new poll from a “nonpartisan nonprofit think tank,” MassInc., has found that 60% of Virginians surveyed support the Transportation and Climate Initiative Framework while only 29% oppose it and 11% are unsure of their feelings, reports The Virginia Mercury. We know right off the bat that the findings are nonsense.…
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The Mo’ Money Mountain Grows Ever Bigger
In his latest budgetary proposal, Governor Ralph Northam has proposed returning $733 million to Virginia taxpayers… Oh, wait a minute. I guess I misread the announcement. It seems he’s proposing $733 million in new spending to protect the environment and fight climate change. That’s on top of advocating Virginia’s entry into the Regional Greenhouse Gas…
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Northam Proposes Reorganization of Tech Programs
by James A. Bacon I’m so old that I remember when the Center for Innovative Technology, created to catalyze high-tech development in Virginia, was in charge of allocating state funds for university-based R&D. After commanding center stage in Virginia’s conversations about technology development during the 1990s and 2000s, CIT underwent successive downsizings to the point…
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Bacon Bits: Adventures in Transportation Policy
How “complete streets” helped revive a small town. Hopewell, best known for its kepone spill in the James River, is nobody’s idea of a progressive community. But perhaps it should be. The city of 22,000 is leading the way in designing bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly “complete streets,” writes Greater Greater Washington‘s Virginia correspondent. Three years after…
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Northam Wants $95 Million More for Preschools
by James A. Bacon Add another initiative to the ever-spawning list of new spending proposals facing the General Assembly in 2020: Governor Ralph Northam wants to spend $94.8 million on expanding early childhood education for poor Virginia children. The primary justification offered for spending more on public pre-school is that other states spend more. If…
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VEDP Chief Urges More Funds for Site Readiness
by James A. Bacon The paucity of developable sites and buildings resulted in Virginia communities being eliminated from consideration for at least 65 projects totaling 19,000 jobs and $5 billion in capital investment over the past three years, according to Virginia Economic Development Partnership President Stephen Moret. Of the 466 large suites available for development…
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Watch Out! Here Comes a Gas Tax Hike!
by James A. Bacon Bacon’s Rebellion predicted that the change of political power in the General Assembly from red to blue would bring a raft of proposals for tax increases and revenue enhancements. Because the General Fund is expected to see healthy revenue growth in the next biennial budget, I speculated that the Northam administration…
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Virginia Health Rank Improves to 15th Best
by James A. Bacon Virginia has improved from 20th place last year to 15th place this year among the 50 states in America’s Health Rankings compiled by the United Health Foundation. The report cited the Commonwealth as one of three states that “made the largest improvements in the rankings since 2018.” (See the Virginia health…
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In Failure, the GOP Has an Opportunity to Reinvent Itself
by James A. Bacon So, the Republicans have wrapped up their annual “Advance” — a retreat at the Omni Homestead resort in Bath County. And if reports of the two newspapers that covered the event are to be believed — one from the Washington Post and one from the Roanoke Times — GOP leaders have…
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House of Delegates Election Tally: $66.4 Million
The final money tally is in, and it looks like more money was spent on House of Delegates elections in 2019 than any election in Virginia history. That was a nearly 42% increase over 2017, which itself was a record, according to data published by the Virginia Public Access Project. Democrats raised $38.2 million in the…
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“Room Clears” Coming Soon to a School Near You?
by James A. Bacon Virginia schools soon could have a new set of regulations governing the use of seclusion and restraint of students. The regs are awaiting approval by Governor Ralph Northam, an official with Virginia’s department of special education and student services told lawmakers Wednesday, as reported by VPM news. The state needs standards…
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Despite Five Years of Programs, Campus “Rapes” Surged at UVa in 2018
by James A. Bacon Five years ago, Rolling Stone magazine plunged the University of Virginia into turmoil with its infamous article, “A Rape on Campus: A Brutal Assault and Struggle for Justice at UVA.” Though totally discredited, the story prompted intensive soul-searching by a campus administration primed to believe in the existence of a “rape…
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Mamas, Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Anthropologists
The U.S. Department of Education College Scorecard has updated its searchable database so students can see median earnings for disciplines in which 20 or more degrees are granted. Just for yuks, I checked the data for Virginia Commonwealth University where my son is enrolled. It will surprise no one to see that students earning computer…