Author: James A. Bacon
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The Catch 22 of Growth
by Randy Salzman With municipalities across America questioning the value of business tax incentives, one Virginia community is completing its sixth study illustrating the true costs and benefits of the prevailing political mantra, “Growth is good.” Backed by Advocates for a Sustainable Albemarle Population (ASAP), this latest work, “Counting the Costs and Benefits of Growth,” finds…
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Terry McAuliffe — Fast Talker or Visionary?
by James A. Bacon I have renewed confidence in the judgment of the professionals at the Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP). According to emails uncovered by an Associated Press through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, they evinced skepticism of an electric-vehicle manufacturing project pitched by Terry McAuliffe, chairman of GreenTech Automotive. The golden-tongued…
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After a Decade of Hardship, State Spending Still Up
As Virginians ponder the amendments to Virginia’s two-year budget proposed this morning by Governor Bob McDonnell, it is worth remembering the extent to which state government spending has increased over the past 10 years despite three years of hardship occasioned by the 2008 recession. Over the last decade, Virginia’s operating budget increased by $15.4 billion…
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Declining Foster Care — a Good Thing or Bad?
by James A. Bacon The departure of a senior social-services administrator in the City of Richmond has prompted an investigation into the city’s foster care program. The number of abuse and neglect petitions filed in the city’s district court has plummeted from 284 two years ago to only 76 by mid-December this year, prompting some…
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McDonnell Makes Good Call on Health Exchanges
by James A. Bacon Governor Bob McDonnell is totally justified in his decision to not set up a state-based health benefits exchange as called for by Obamacare, even if it means relinquishing a modicum of control over health care insurance to the federal government. He laid out his thinking clearly in a press release issued…
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Incentives: Being the Best Doesn’t Mean Being the Biggest
There is an interesting juxtaposition of stories today. On the one hand, Forbes Magazine has published its 2012 ranking of the Best States for Business, and Virginia ranks No. 2 for the third year in a row behind Utah. Aside from its general, all-around positive business climate, Forbes singles out the Old Dominion for having…
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Why Not a Toll for Tysons?
by James A. Bacon Earlier this week the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors backed off from a proposal to set up a special tax district that would help pay for some $3 billion in public improvements in Tysons. News reports suggest that the reprieve may be only temporary. The board has not backtracked from its…
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JLARC Plugs Year-Round Schools… under Certain Circumstances
My first introduction to year-round school calendars was through my sister-in-law’s family in Wake County, N.C. Concluding that it made no sense to let schools sit vacant for three summer months out of the year, school officials in the fast-growing county outside Raleigh eked out extra capacity by dividing the long summer break into shorter…
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Urban Vitality in Lynchburg
It’s a fact, Bacon’s Rebellion doesn’t write enough about Lynchburg. So let me remedy that deficiency by highlighting the following factoid: Lynchburg has been highlighted in a Smart Growth America report as one of Top Ten small metros in the United States in which the core city is growing faster than its outlying jurisdictions. Between…
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The New Frontier for Economic Development: Community Health
by James A. Bacon When corporations make decisions on where to expand, they consider a long check-list of factors such as availability of labor, workforce skills, transportation access and the cost of real estate, among many others. Add a new one to the list: community health. Says James S. Marks, senior vice president of the…
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Army Corp Wants New Analysis of Cville Bypass
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) isn’t the only federal agency that would like to see a comprehensive environmental reevaluation of the Charlottesville Bypass. The Army Corps of Engineers contends that previous environmental studies, conducted in 1990 and 2002, may be outdated and do not fully explore alternatives to the bypass. The Norfolk District of the…
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Food Insecurity in Virginia
When you sit down for your big family meal on Christmas Eve (or other religious holiday of your choice), your table groaning with turkey, potatoes, green beans, salads, ham biscuits, gravy boats, cranberries, apple pie and that ossifying fruitcake that Aunt Mable gave you three years ago, you can chow down with a clear conscience.…
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Another Fiscal Pothole
In its 2012 session the General Assembly contended with the looming liabilities of the state employee pension plan. In the 2013 session, it may have to confront the looming liabilities of $900 million-a-year state employee health care program. Unless immediate steps are taken, reports Jeff Schapiro with the Times-Dispatch, the State Employees Health Insurance Fund…
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Is Virginia’s Violent Crime Rate Down or Not?
The murder rate is down across the country, and Americans can be forgiven for relishing this rare bit of good news amid the dirges for layoffs, deficits and fiscal cliffs. Now the Wall Street Journal has gone and spoiled it all for us. While the number of murders has declined the past decade, it’s not…
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Countering the Cow Menace
by James A. Bacon Once upon a time, industrial discharges and municipal sewage treatment plants were the biggest sources of pollution for the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. But these “point source” polluters have significantly cleaned up their act, and further gains could cost tens of millions of dollars per facility. Whom do we target…