Category: Business and Economy
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Vertically Integrated Health Providers/Insurers – Weak State Oversight But New Federal Authority
by James C. Sherlock In the contest between Virginia’s disorganized attempts to oversee vertically integrated health care and health insurance businesses, Sentara being the most prominent example, and Virginia’s regional monopolies’ defenses against effective regulation and legislation, the monopolies have won. This piece discusses Virginia’s failed legislative and regulatory oversight structures. I will recommend structural…
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Should Northern Virginia Join D.C. in the 51st State?
By Don Rippert Taxation without representation. The Democratic Party’s control of Congress and the White House has reopened the question of statehood for Washington, DC. This is not a new issue. The question of statehood for D.C. has been actively debated since 1980. Since the 98th Congress, more than a dozen statehood bills have been…
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Who Hit the Brakes on NoVa Growth?
by James A. Bacon Northern Virginia’s population is growing, but not nearly as fast as before. According to a new study by University of Virginia demographer Hamilton Lombard, Northern Virginia accounted for 66.5% of the state’s population growth between 2010 and 2019, but slipped to 33.7% in the last year. “While Northern Virginia is still…
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State Tax Harvest Under Northam Expands Again
by Steve Haner With the release today of the April 2021 Virginia state revenue report, a correction in an earlier post becomes necessary. Overall general fund state tax collections are not up 26% so far compared to four years ago, they are up almost 30 percent. Corporate income tax collections are not up 68%, but…
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This One Easy Trick Makes Gas Lines Grow Expontentially
by James A. Bacon As panic buying sends Virginians to the gas pumps to top off their tanks, Attorney General Mark Herring is encouraging citizens to report instances of price gouging. “This ransomewear (sic) attack on the Colonial Pipeline could create disruptions in the gasoline supply across the Commonwealth, and unfortunately, bad actors could take…
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Gas Shortages: Deja Vu All Over Again
by Kerry Dougherty It’s like old times. 1979 to be exact. Just 3 1/2 months into the Biden administration and we’ve gone from energy independence to gas lines. What’s next, 18% percent mortgages? Or will Joe borrow Jimmy Carter’s old cardigan and urge us all to turn down the thermostats? Yep, everywhere I went yesterday…
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An Old Use of Solar Power
By Dick Hall-Sizemore Greenhouses have been used since the time of the Roman Empire. A couple of Virginia Beach entrepreneurs are planning to use this old technology to harness the sun’s energy in a big way. Their company, Sunny Farms, plans to invest $60 million to build hydroponic greenhouses on more than 30 acres, about…
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Our Deranged Economic Policy
by James A. Bacon Back during the Great Depression, critics of President Roosevelt’s economic policies equated them with paying unemployed workers to dig holes and fill them back up. As loony as that sounds, it’s better than what government does today. At least the idea of paying people to dig holes honored the age-old connection…
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Has COVID-19 Killed the Urban Renaissance?
by James A. Bacon If you’re looking for a good Sunday read, consider an article by Tim Sablik, “Has the Pandemic Changed Cities Forever?“, in the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank’s Econ Focus. Sablik does a fine job of sketching out the big issues identified by the nation’s leading urbanologists as they ponder the impact of…
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The Ballad Merger II: Cuts and Consolidations
by Carol J. Bova Upon the merger of Mountain States Health Alliance and Wellmont Health System in 2018, the first order of business for the newly created Ballad Health was shoring up its finances. If Ballad wasn’t successful at this, it would not have the resources to invest in the new services, facilities, programs, and…
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Virginia Taxes New Firms Higher, NC the Opposite
by Steve Haner Virginia is far more tax friendly to established businesses than it is to new ones. That’s one major conclusion of a major state-by-state business tax comparison released today (here) by the Tax Foundation and KPMG LLC. In neighboring North Carolina, on the other hand, the tax structure encourages new investment with…
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Chesapeake Regional Medical Center Sues Sentara – Again
by James C. Sherlock A tip of the hat to my friends at Checks and Balances Project for alerting us to a new civil suit filed April 27 against Sentara by Chesapeake Regional Medical Center (CRMC). I will comment on Sentara’s response to the suit when it is available. The complaint alleges various instances of…
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Only You Can Prevent Mega Fires
by James A. Bacon Virginia’s environmentalists seem determined to out-California California when it comes to fighting global warming and pushing for a zero-carbon economy. But they do seem unlikely to repeat the colossal error that has made the Golden State a cauldron of forest fire infernos. Rather than let understory vegetation grow out of control,…
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Michael Saylor: Prophet or Charlatan?
by James A. Bacon Great cover story in Virginia Business magazine this month: MicroStrategy CEO Michael Saylor’s $2 billion gamble on bitcoin. I’m glad to see this story. First, it represents a return to the kind of business journalism Virginia Business did when I was editor and publisher many eons ago, when we wrote about…
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Corporate Tax Already Exploding in Virginia
by Steve Haner First published this morning in The Roanoke Times. With Virginia’s fiscal year now three-quarters complete, and basically one year since the depths of the COVID-19 recession, state tax revenues are soaring. Despite reports that the boom results from the economic rebound, it remains clear that changes in tax policy under Governor Ralph…