Category: Government Finance
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VEC: 1.5 Million Unemployment Claims In 2020
By Steve Haner By the end of this amazing year, almost 1.5 million Virginians may have filed claims for unemployment insurance payments, leaving the state’s once-record unemployment trust fund balance of $1.5 billion reduced to $750 million in the red, legislators were told this morning. That $2.25 billion swing is due to $2.6 billion spent…
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Gerald Smith: Richmond’s New Top Cop
By Peter Galuszka FYI, here’s a piece I did for Style Weekly about Richmond’s new p0lice chief, the third in about a month, and his interpretation on the problems of law enforcement in this period of defunding.
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Conservative Budgeting–Still the Virginia Way
By Dick Hall-Sizemore Secretary of Finance Aubrey Layne is following in the classic conservative tradition established by his predecessors: under project your revenues and then look good when they come in higher than projected. In his case, he gets to bask, not in a bigger surplus than projected, but in a much lower shortfall than…
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(Almost) Free Money
By James C. Sherlock Steve Haner’s superb column on the state budget turned attention to federal aid to state and local governments. It is worthwhile to review where the feds get that money. James T. Agresti, CEO of Just Facts (chart above), has written recently hat U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio is four times the historical average…
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Housing Grants Just a COVID Relief Rounding Error
By Steve Haner Will $50 million be enough? Will that get all the Virginians who have fallen behind due to COVID-19 square on their rent or mortgage payments? Or is that amount, in a relief program now fleshed out by the Northam Administration, merely a start? There is a hint on the program’s web page,…
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The Revenue Picture is Bad, But Not as Bad as Expected
By Dick Hall-Sizemore The state’s May revenue report has been released today. As one would have expected, the May 2020 general fund (GF) revenues were down significantly from May 2019 and the year-to-date GF revenues are running behind the annual forecast. However, on the somewhat bright side, the administration is now saying that it expects…
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Racism, COVID19 and Marijuana Legalization in Virginia
By DJ Rippert Unintended consequences. Newspapers, websites and Bacon’s Rebellion have been full of articles describing and debating the COVID-19 pandemic and the police killing of George Floyd with the attendant protests. First-order consequences of these events have been widely discussed. However, as we enter into the “new normal” a number of secondary and tertiary…
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Gunning Up Virginia’s Cops
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in Business and Economy, Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Corruption and Scandals, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Culture wars, Defense, National Security, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Federal issues, Government Finance, Gun rights, Mental illness and substance abuse, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race RelationsBy Peter Galuszka In 2014, the Sheriff’s Department of York County and Poquoson got their very own tank-like vehicle, called a “Mine Resistant Ambush Protected (MRAP).” Fully armored and tan in color with steep sides, it looks like something out television footage of the war in Iraq where U.S. troops needed to get through mine-infested…
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Remember Petersburg!
by James A. Bacon Two weeks ago, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a $3 trillion coronavirus-relief bill that would direct nearly $1 trillion to state, local and tribal governments. This massive bail-out would come on top of massive assistance to states and localities in previous legislation: $150 for a Coronavirus Relief Fund, $30 billion…
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Construction: Virginia’s Quiet, Strong Man
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in Agriculture & forestry, Blogs and Blog Administration, Business and Economy, Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Consumer Protection, Culture wars, Demographics, Economic development, Energy, Entrepreneurs and Innovation, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Government Transparency, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, Land use & Development, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, Telecommunications, TransportationBy Peter Galuszka For all the complaints about the COVID-19 pandemic in Virginia – the shut-down restaurants and (temporarily) closed beaches – one industry has been working steadily and quietly all along – the state’s construction sector. Builders haven’t missed much of a beat since the “state at home” orders started going out a couple…
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Juggling the Revenue
By Dick Hall-Sizemore Jim Bacon mentioned in an earlier post that the state’s revenues for April were $700 million less than in April of last year. I was surprised that there were no cries of outrage from readers and dire warnings of the state running a budget deficit. I was also surprised that I did…
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Hidden, Spaced Out, Higher Taxes Coming
By Steve Haner First published this morning by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. The 2020 General Assembly, with its new progressive Democratic majority, passed a host of changes in Virginia tax laws that will begin to hit individuals and businesses in a few weeks on July 1. Because of the COVID-19 economic shutdown,…
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WTJU Podcast: COVID-19 and the Economy
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in Agriculture & forestry, Bacon and Pigs, Blogs and Blog Administration, Business and Economy, Charity, Philanthropy, Nonprofits, Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Consumer Protection, Corruption and Scandals, Culture wars, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Efficiency in Government, Elections, Electoral process, Energy, Entrepreneurs and Innovation, Environment, Federal issues, General Assembly, Governance, Government Finance, Government Transparency, Gun rights, Health Care, Housing, Immigration, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Media, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Poverty & income gap, Property rights, Public safety & health, Race and Race Relations, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, Taxes, Telecommunications, TransportationBy Peter Galuszka Here’s is the twice-monthly podcast produced by WTJU, the official radio station of the University of Virginia. With me on this podcast are Nathan Moore, the station general manager, and Sarah Vogelsong, who covers, labor, energy and environmental issues across the state for the Virginia Mercury, a fairly new and highly regarded…
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State Spending Hike Also Postponed, Not Canceled
By Steve Haner Originally published in the May 3 Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star and then distributed by the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy. Just as COVID-19 was starting its destruction of the world’s economy in early March, the Virginia General Assembly took final action on an exuberant two-year state budget within shouting distance of $140…
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Screwing Workers On Safety and Liability
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in Bacon and Pigs, Business and Economy, Civil Rights, Individual Liberties, Consumer Protection, Corruption and Scandals, Economic development, Environment, Federal issues, General Assembly, Government Finance, Health Care, Money in politics, Public safety & health, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & Technology, Social Services and Entitlements, TransportationBy Peter Galuszka At 4:30 a.m. on April 27, about 100 workers of the Greater Richmond Transit Company — half of the total – failed to show up for work. Worried about the health of its membership, Local 1220 of the International Amalgamated Transit Union demanded additional safety measures such as full personal protection equipment,…