Author: James A. Bacon
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New Rules of the Road: Following Too Closely
Here’s another bill I like: HB 1950. Introduced by Alfonso Lopez, D-Arlington, this bill brings bikes under the protection of the no-tailgating law by deleting one word from existing legislation: “The driver of a motor vehicle shall not follow another motor vehicle, trailer, or semitrailer more closely than is reasonable and prudent…” In this case,…
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The Case For Transportation User Fees
by James A. Bacon Say this about Governor Bob McDonnell’s plan to scrap the gasoline tax and substitute a sales tax to fund transportation: Virginia has plenty of company around the country when it come to abandoning the user-pays principle. Americans apparently consider free roads, bridges and highways as an inalienable birth right — right…
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The $300 Million Pork Product Stuffed into the Governor’s Tax Bill
There’s been a lot of talk about the tax aspects of Governor Bob McDonnell’s restructuring of transportation revenue sources, with the latest wrinkle coming from the center-left Commonwealth Institute, which observes that the governor’s proposal to shift from the motor fuels tax to the sales tax would disproportionately hurt the poor. According to CI’s new…
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Our Way or the Highway
by James A. Bacon James E. Rich has resigned from his position at the Commonwealth Transportation Board under pressure from the McDonnell administration. The Culpeper transportation district representative had opposed funding of the controversial Charlottesville Bypass and then had tried repeatedly, without success, to get the decision overturned. One of the board’s more outspoken members,…
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McDonnell Pitches Tax Plan
by James A. Bacon Addressing a friendly audience this afternoon at the Commonwealth Transportation Board, Governor Bob McDonnell plugged his transportation financing plan, arguing that it was “economically sound, politically viable” and will “fix the problem.” “Our problem is a math problem,” the governor said. “Revenues are on a downward path and the cost of…
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Transportation Funding Car Wreck
Uh, oh, the anti-tax wing of the Republican Party was already getting cold feet about Governor Bob McDonnell’s transportation funding plan yesterday. As Capital News Service quoted, Del. Ben Cline, R-Amherst, as saying in a press conference held by the General Assembly’s Conservative Caucus: “Conservatives want to see taxes kept low. They want to see…
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Fighting the Long Battle for a Virginia Virtual School
by James A. Bacon Del. Dickie Bell, R-Staunton, knows he faces an up-hill climb creating a public online alternative to local school districts in Virginia, but he’s not giving up. The challenges are many. The educational establishment doesn’t like any idea that would turn schooling over to private-sector contractors. The governor’s office has not signed…
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Hey, Accreditors, Pick a Better Target!
Former Senator Hank Brown has joined the ranks of those — led first by Reed Fawell here in Bacon’s Rebellion — who question whether the Southern Association of Colleges (SACS) accrediting agency has any business instructing the University of Virginia on the fine points of university governance. In today’s Wall Street Journal, he reinforces several…
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That Darned Cuccinelli Is Not Performing to Script!
by James A. Bacon Attorney General and assumed Republican gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli may be a populist conservative politician, but that doesn’t mean he’s predictable. Who ever would have imagined him fighting to restore the voting rights of nonviolent felons? A House subcommittee voted down this morning proposed constitutional amendments that would provide for the…
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Kings of the Road?
Who really establishes transportation policy for Virginia, the Commonwealth Transportation Board or the McDonnell administration?
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All Hail the Creeper Trail
The Virginia Creeper Trail is arguably the most beloved bicycle trail in Virginia. But it wasn’t always so. As Bill Lohmann reminds us in the Times-Dispatch, many landowners along the trail, which was built upon an abandoned railroad bed, opposed its development in the 1980s. Writes Lohmann: One group filed a lawsuit. Others placed logs…
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Brace Yourself: Health Insurance Shock to Slam Virginia
Hey, does anyone remember President Obama’s promise that health insurance premiums would fall by $2,500 a year for a family if Congress passed Obamacare? Probably not, because that prognostication is going so woefully wrong that the mainstream media has not dropped it into the memory hole. But Virginians will have reason to recall the president’s…
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An Expanded CTB Board: Long Overdue. But Nothing Will Change.
James A. Bacon Del. Thomas Rust, R-Fairfax, has introduced a bill, HB 2409, that would expand the representation of urban areas in the Commonwealth Transportation Board, the board charged with setting transportation policy and allocating transportation revenues. The Richmond, Hampton Roads and Northern Virginia transportation districts each would expand the number of seats from one…
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The Dumb and Dumber Transportation Funding Policy
by Randy Salzman If Virginia removes its meager gasoline tax, the state, economic history shows, will have more people driving more places more frequently, which will increase congestion, add to the nation’s oil import tab and force the United States to keep expensive military forces near foreign oil fields. It will accelerate the oil world’s…
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One Mile Forward, Two Miles Backwards
Critics of Governor Bob McDonnell’s transportation tax package, which would scrap the gas tax in favor of a higher sales tax, have focused on a perverse unintended consequence: Reducing the cost of driving will encourage motorists to drive more, thus making congestion worse. How much? Here’s what Mark Burris, an associate research engineer with the…