Category: Government Finance
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Richmond’s Arab Spring
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in Business and Economy, Children and Families, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Demographics, Economic development, Education (higher ed), Education (K-12), Electoral process, Energy, Government Finance, Health Care, Immigration, Infrastructure, Labor and Workforce, LGBQT, Money in politics, Planning, Politics, Social Services and Entitlements, UncategorizedBy Peter Galuszka What seems one of the wildest General Assembly sessions that ended on Saturday was actually a healthy display of democracy in action. It could presage a fundamental way that things are done in Richmond. True, a new Republican and conservative majority in the House of Delegates pushed odious wedge issues at the…
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Bad Days for Mickey D.
By Peter Galuszka There must be considerable gnashing of teeth in the Governor’s Mansion. Robert F. McDonnell had been working so hard to distance himself from his social conservative past, notably that nettlesome and Neanderthal anti-gay and anti-female graduate thesis. He had worked hard to remake himself as a reasonable moderate, thus setting himself up…
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A Pathetic Half-Time
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By Peter Galuszka It’s so-called halftime at the Virginia General Assembly, and with conservative Republicans holding sway and many serious problems facing the Commonwealth, here’s what we’ve come up with so far: Women exercising their constitutional right to have an abortion now will be forced to undergo and pay for an ultrasound before the procedure.…
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Goodbye Grundy! Hello, Wal-Mart
By Peter Galuszka Hours west of Richmond by car lies the old coal town of Grundy, lying at a confluence of the flood-prone Levisa Fork River below steep cliffs of sedimentary rock of sandstone and shale. Grundy has been a touchstone for my various trips to the Virginia coalfields over the years. I hadn’t been…
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Fraud a Minor Factor in Virginia Medicaid Spending
A piece of good news on the government efficiency front: Medicaid fraud by recipients and providers cost the General Fun only $6.1 million in Fiscal 2009, according to a report published by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC). The less-than-g0od news is that payments to individuals improperly enrolled in Medicaid amounted to beween…
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The Cooch’s Personal Cops?
By Peter Galuszka Virginia’s zany attorney general wants to create his own armed, flying squad of crime-busters. In what could be a 21st century version of “Dragnet,” Kenneth Cuccinelli wants to create his own police force. He wants to arm 40 of the 83 members of his Medicaid fraud investigative arm. They’d have badges, too. Cuccinelli…
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Trimmed Transportation Bill Lurches Forward
Governor Bob McDonnell’s omnibus transportation bill has undergone significant revisions during the General Assembly session, sloughing off two of its more controversial proposals, but it still has the environmental and smart-growth lobbies up in arms. A House subcommittee amended HB 1248, a legislative behemoth that could be usefully broken into five or six separate bills,…
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Oilfield Reality Check
By Peter Galuszka One has to laugh at just how fantastic the debate over energy has become. Conservatives are trying to make President Barack Obama a goat for not bowing to the propaganda about the Keystone XL pipeline which would take unusually dirty oil from Canadian tar sands all the way to the U.S. Gulf…
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“The Iron Lady”
By Peter Galuszka “The Iron Lady,” a biopic starring Meryl Streep, has brought fresh attention to the policies and philosophies of Margaret Thatcher, the ground-breaking leader who served as Great Britain’s Prime Minister for 11 years – from 1979 to 1990. Always controversial, Thatcher pioneered much of the conservative framework still in play today, such…
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Does Vlad Have the Right Idea?
By Peter Galuszka As conservatives argue about cutting deficits and keeping low taxes for the rich both in Virginia and nationally, a bigger question is coming up: does Vladimir I. Lenin actually have the answer? Sounds strange, I know, but not if you read Britain’s center-right weekly business newsweekly, The Economist. In a leader titled,…
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McDonnell Budget Short-Changes General Fund Programs
The Commonwealth Institute has come out swinging with the toughest critique of Gov. Bob McDonnell’s proposed 2013-14 budget that I have yet seen. States a new report, “Reality Check,” written by Sara Okos and Michael J. Cassidy: Instead of reforming, reallocating and reinvesting in the programs that make government more efficient, effective and accountable, the…
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Illinois as Italy
Over at DollarCollapse.com John Rubino asks, “Why Isn’t Illinois a Bigger Story than Greece?” Describing the Land of Lincoln as a “failed state” with $8.5 billion in unpaid bills, $27 billion in outstanding bonds and $80 billion in unpaid pension liabilities, he writes: For investors it’s a clear sign that some sort of default is…
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Good Move on Uranium
By Peter Galuszka Gov. Robert F. McDonnell has punted on the uranium controversy and that’s a good thing, assuming the General Assembly doesn’t lift the mining ban anyway. There are simply too many unknowns about mining the tract owned by Virginia Uranium near Chatham and the state has no knowledge or regulations about mining the…
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Chesapeake Taps Infrastructure Bank for New Bridge
by James A. Bacon The McDonnell administration has closed its first major transportation-funding deal with the newly created Virginia Transportation Infrastructure Bank (VTIB): a $412 million bridge-building project in Chesapeake. The mission of the VTIB is to back important transportation projects that could not get financing otherwise. The Dominion Boulevard project will replace an old,…
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Don’t Panic!!!!!!!
It may be too soon to freak out over FY 2012 budget revenues. But it’s not too early to get severe case of the heebie-jeebies. The Commonwealth’s December revenues declined 4.7% compared to the same month last year — significantly below the 4.6% average average annual growth rate required to meet budget. Year to date…