Author: James A. Bacon
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Henrico’s $6 Million Surprise
When last we heard from Henrico County officials about the parlous state of the county budget, we were told that it was necessary to impose a 4% meals tax because there was no other way to balance the budget without raising taxes or gutting the school budget. Tax foes argued that the county would not…
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A Movement to Impeach Mark Herring?
Oh, my, it didn’t take long for Virginia’s new attorney general to spark a constitutional crisis. Bearing Drift has published the draft of a resolution, under consideration by two unnamed General Assembly delegates, to impeach Mark Herring for refusing to defend a provision of the state constitution. Read the resolution here. Money quote: “The nature of…
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Lerner Aims to Complete Tysons Office Tower… Only Two Years Late
by James A. Bacon Well, well, well, what do you know? The commercial building boom in Tysons triggered by the imminent completion of Phase One of the Rail-to-Dulles project doesn’t seem to be running on schedule. A Washington Post article today highlights Lerner Enterprise’s lengthy delay in building an 18-story, 476,000-square-foot office building near one of…
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MBUFs and Value Capture asTransportation Financing Tools
by James A. Bacon A common challenge for every state is finding the funds to expand the transportation system to serve a growing population and economy. Virginia endured a grueling debate last year over former Governor Bob McDonnell’s proposal to shift much of the burden to the state sales tax. Other states have made a…
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Federal Transportation Funds Running Short? Try Local Innovation.
There are two ways to respond to the shrinking federal budget for transportation projects: You can whine and mewl and curse the injustice of things, or you can look for other ways to cope with the country’s transportation challenges. Smart Growth America (SGA) has chosen the latter course, publishing “The Innovative DOT: a handbook of…
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AG to Virginia Constitution: Drop Dead
Less than two weeks ago, Attorney General Mark Herring swore to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of Virginia. Apparently, he was crossing his fingers behind his back while taking the oath of office, for he now asserts that Virginia’s constitutional ban on same-sex marriage is…. unconstitutional. Not only that, but the AG’s office will…
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Big Brother? I Think He’s On My Contact List.
by James A. Bacon Not long ago there was a fair amount of buzz over the idea of a Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) tax as a way to finance the maintenance and construction of roads and highways in the United States. That buzz, it seems, has largely died down. Technologically speaking, it would be a…
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I See the Quid. Where’s the Quo?
by James A. Bacon The McDonnell GiftGate scandal has has the salubrious effect of inspiring legislators to tighten up state ethics laws. There is no way to know what the final outcome will be, but the legislative end product undoubtedly will create more transparency and accountability than existed before. There is, however, a potential downside…
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Educating Children, Cutting Spending
The Education Improvement Scholarship Tax Credit made it possible for 275 low-income students to receive private-school scholarships this year while saving the Commonwealth of Virginia almost $745,000. So concludes the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy in a new published policy brief. The 2013-2014 school year marks the first year that students received private-school scholarships…
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Bob McDonnell’s All-Too-Human Story
by James A. Bacon In reading highlights of the indictment against former Governor Bob McDonnell and his wife Maureen, I alternate between having sympathy for the governor and wanting to cuff him across the back of his head. How could he have gotten himself into such a situation? We knew from previous reports that the…
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Housing Supply, Demand and Affordability
by James A. Bacon The Hampton Roads and Richmond housing markets are “moderately unaffordable,” according to the 10th Annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey: 2014. While not exactly a kudo, that classification puts the two of Virginia’s three largest metros in the top one third of housing affordability for major markets (one million people and…
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Massey Bill to Expedite Online Learning for Higher Ed
A bill submitted by Del. James P. “Jimmie” Massey III, R-Henrico, would promote online education in Virginia by making it easier for the state’s higher ed institutions to enroll out-of-state students. Frank Muraca, executive editor of Fourth Estate, George Mason University’s student-run news publication, has the story here. Colleges and universities such as GMU are turning to distance education…
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40 Million Pounds of Toxics Released in Virginia Every Year
by James A. Bacon Virginia industries in 2011 discharged 19.9 million pounds of toxic chemicals into the air, 16.7 million pounds into the water and 2.5 million pounds onto the land — and almost all of it was legal. So concludes a new report from the Robert R. Merhige Jr. Center for Environmental Studies at…
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Will Self-Driving Cars Promote Smart Growth?
I always imagined that thinkers in the Smart Growth camp would be unnerved by the prospect of roads filled with self-driving cars (SDCs). If commuters could punch a destination into their mapping app, lean back, read email, surf the web or even doze off during the drive to work, SDCs could revive the long-distance commute…
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Four Hard-Nosed Reasons to Invest in Bike Lanes
About a year ago, I hosted a couple of brain-storming sessions to develop talking points for building a bicycle infrastructure in the Richmond region. The goal was to make a hard-nosed business case that investing in bikes would boost economic growth and bolster public health. (See “Making the Public Health Case for Bicycles” and “Bicycles and…