Category: Business and Economy
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What Housing Slowdown?
by Dick Hall-Sizemore I keep reading and hearing that the housing market has cooled. Well, the folks in my neighborhood have not gotten the message. About three weeks ago, a house a block and a half from me went on the market. It quickly went under contract. Then, a couple of weeks ago, a “For…
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Virginia Drops from A+ to C in Worker Freedom — Largest Decrease in the Country
by F. Vincent Vernuccio Virginia’s ranking fell more than any other state in the Commonwealth Foundation’s 50 State Labor Report “The Battle for Worker Freedom in the States: Grading State Labor Laws.” Virginia plunged from an “A+” ranking in 2019 to a dismal “C” this year. This was due to what the report called “[t]he…
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Opioid Epidemic Costs Virginians $3.5 Billion a Year
Over and above the lives it has destroyed, the opioid epidemic cost Virginia’s economy about $3.5 billion in 2020, according to data published by the Virginia Department of Health. The major costs calculated include lost labor, health care and crime. Mapping the costs by locality, the database shows per-capita costs ranging from $132 in Falls…
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Virginia as Tech Worker Paradise?
There is good news and bad news in a recent ranking of the best places in the U.S. “to work in tech” by Zurich, Switzerland-based SmallPDF, a company that converts PDF files to Word files. The good news is that Virginia ranks at the top of the list. From the press release: The research found…
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Good Energy Plan But It Needs to Pass
by Steve Haner First published this morning by Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. In his newly released energy plan, Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) makes it clear he sees the economic abyss created by the unrealistic and ideological green utopia demanded by his predecessor. Seeing a looming disaster and stopping it are two different things.…
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Legislators MIA on Wind Performance Standard
by Steve Haner In the ongoing debate over Dominion Energy Virginia’s proposed $10 billion offshore wind project, focus should remain on the people truly responsible for undercutting State Corporation Commission authority to protect consumers: the legislators who passed provisions in the code the utility interprets as a rubber stamp for its proposals.
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Coalition Exploring Lawsuit to Challenge CVOW
The following news release has been issued by the Thomas Jefferson Institute along with other coalition partners. A coalition of public interest groups – The Heartland Institute, the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT), and the American Coalition for Ocean Protection (ACOP) – announced in late September that it has hired counsel to explore a…
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The Greens, Their Quiet Partners, and Trains
by James C. Sherlock I love trains. Always have. Took my first train ride at a very young age with my mother and brother from D.C. to Birmingham to visit mom’s family. After the Navy, my private sector work was based in McLean. I had regular business in New York I took Amtrak whenever feasible.…
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Next Virginia Tax Reform: Index for Inflation
by Barbara Hollingsworth Most Virginians are painfully aware that it’s becoming much more difficult to make ends meet. Prices for food, housing, gasoline and other necessities have soared. Inflation hit a 40-year high of 9.1 percent in June, the largest yearly increase since January 1982. And a recent study from the University of Iowa found…
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SCC Can Set CVOW Wind Performance Standard
by Steve Haner First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. Despite Dominion Energy Virginia’s complaints that the Virginia State Corporation Commission has exceeded its authority, a legal analysis provided by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy finds that the SCC’s proposed performance standard for an offshore wind project is…
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Sorry, Lefties, But Racists Don’t Invest In Black Enterprise
by James A. Bacon The broadsides against Bert Ellis are going national. Inside Higher Education, the higher-ed trade publication, has published an article highlighting the growing controversy over Ellis’ appointment to the University of Virginia Board of Visitors. The article quotes Eva Surovell, editor-in-chief of The Cavalier Daily, whose articles sparked the furor, as saying…
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Consequences of the Zero Carbon Fantasy
By Steve Haner First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. Virginians may finally be waking up to the consequences of the headlong rush to adopt utopian energy policies under our previous governor. The issues are getting more attention than ever before, and now people need to realize that all the…
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When Politicians Run Power Companies
by Steve Haner Residential customers of Dominion Energy Virginia will soon be paying 55% more for electricity than they were when the Virginia General Assembly took over micromanaging utility regulation in 2007. The Western Virginia customers of Appalachian Power will have seen their electric bills rise by 92%. Underlying inflation for the period has been…
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Taking on Workforce Development — Again
by Dick Hall-Sizemore The Richmond Times-Dispatch (RTD) reports that Governor Glenn Youngkin plans to present a major restructuring of Virginia’s workforce development efforts to the 2023 General Assembly. I commend the Governor for taking this issue on. It is the sort of “good government” initiative that needs to be done, but requires a lot of…