Category: Government Finance
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Latest Debt and Deficit Projections Warrant a Full-Scale Freakout
by James A. Bacon The latest projections from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) indicate that, given continuation of current levels of taxation and programmatic spending, the U.S. budget deficit will be running at $2.3 trillion a year by 2033, driven in large part by a $1 trillion-a-year increase in interest payments on the national debt…
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Top Three Financial Takeaways from RVA
by Jon Baliles Last week Richmond’s Mayor and Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) reported to City Council that the Annual Comprehensive Financial Report (ACFR) was completed and had been turned in to the Virginia Auditor of Accounts. The report was due in mid-December, but better late than never I guess (and still it was way earlier…
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Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Virginia Public Schools – Big Complications and Major Changes
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by James C. Sherlock Rebecca Aman, a member of the Newport News School Board, is frustrated. She told me in an interview that: Without sufficient discipline and access to clinical mental health services, behavioral intervention does not work to make schools safer and healthier. She believes that Newport News schools need to improve both discipline…
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Focus on the Standard Deduction, QBI Deduction
We have seen this before in Virginia and here we go again: the classic conflict between tax cuts for the many versus more government spending for a few. The Republican-dominated House of Delegates has passed a series of broad tax reductions, while the Democratic-dominated Virginia Senate has killed its versions of the same bills. Last…
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Will McDonald’s Be Leaving Virginia? Not This year, But…
by Chris Saxman I wish the headline of today’s column was just click bait. It originates from a headline that was pushed across my phone that read “Will McDonald’s be leaving California?” That immediately made me think that McDonald’s corporate offices might be considering moving their headquarters from California to another state. Given the exodus…
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RVA 5×5: State of The City – What The People Think
by Jon Baliles There is a little-known part of Richmond’s City Code that requires the City Auditor to produce a “Services, Efforts, and Accomplishments” (SEA) Report by conducting a thorough poll/survey of Richmond residents to see what they think about the level of service and performance and deliverability of City government. In other words, it’s…
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Five Reasons the Assembly Should Cut Taxes
By Barbara Hollingsworth Last week, the Republican majority in the Virginia House of Delegates passed a $1 billion package of tax cuts for individuals and businesses, the centerpiece of Governor Glenn Youngkin’s economic agenda. But Democrats, who have a 22-18 majority in the state Senate, have a laundry list of policies and programs they would…
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Lab School Process Underway; Youngkin Oblivious to Overfunding
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Governor Youngkin’s Lab School initiative is off to a fairly good start, although it is probably not progressing as quickly as he thought or hoped it would. According to the Department of Education (DOE), the department has received two applications for the establishment of a lab school— from James Madison University and…
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School Choice for Poor Still Hard Sell to Democrats
By Chris Braunlich On being told that peasants were starving for lack of bread, Marie Antoinette is reputed to have said “Let them eat cake.” Marie Antoinette had nothing on Delegate Suhas Subramanyam. At a House subcommittee meeting on Wednesday, Delegate Subramanyam was confronted with more than a dozen low-income families and Black community leaders…
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Right Help, Right Now
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Probably the most important set of budget proposals made by Governor Youngkin for the upcoming General Assembly has been in the area of mental health. It has already been discussed generally on this blog. (See here and here.) It might be helpful to examine the details of the proposal. The Governor, and…
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Governor’s Plan to Bolster Law Enforcement Is Meek Rather Than Bold
by Dick Hall-Sizemore In October, amidst much fanfare, Governor Youngkin announced Operation Bold Blue Line. In the words of the Governor’s press release, this initiative is “a series of concrete actions to reduce homicides, shootings, and violent crime.” I had some questions and wanted some details on the proposal. I posed these questions to the…
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Democrats Want to Raise Youngkin-Proposed Mental Health Budget Increase
by James C. Sherlock There is fundamental agreement in Richmond over mental health services. From the Richmond Times-Dispatch: Virginia’s forecasts of long-term budget surpluses mean this year’s General Assembly has a chance to catch up with years of under-funding Virginia schools and the state’s behavioral health system, General Assembly Democrats say. To govern is to…
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Preparing for the Costs to Government of Virginia’s Generation COVID
by James C. Sherlock To justify her insistence on keeping schools closed, Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers, said in February of 2021, “kids are resilient and kids will recover.” She brought that same message to Virginia. In one of the strangest choices in Virginia political history, Terry McAuliffe brought Weingarten…
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A Conservative Fiscal Proposal
by Dick Hall-Sizemore Governor Youngkin has proposed tax reductions that would reduce state revenue by about $1 billion in this biennium. I have an alternative proposal on how to use that billion dollars, one that should appeal to the instincts of conservatives on this blog—reduce the Commonwealth’s outstanding debt balance. The Debt Capacity Advisory Committee…
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New Youngkin Tax Cuts Total $7 Billion By 2028
by Steve Haner The set of Virginia tax changes Governor Glenn Youngkin (R) has baked into his proposed 2023 budget amendments is far more extensive and involves substantially more tax relief than the descriptions he offered in his December 15 presentation.