Virginia has a top-down public educational system in which many policies and procedures are dictated by a large educational bureaucracy in Virginia. The Old Dominion, which professedly believes in competition, has among the fewest charter schools of any state in the country. And automatic funding formulas (the Standards of Quality) ensure that taxpayers ratchet state…

The gracious and intrepid Jim Bacon postponed his other pressing duties this morning to join me in a discussion on Virginia’s busted budget and what to do about it. You can listen to the whole interview here:

Transcript from Real Clear Politics of a Chris Wallace (Fox News) interview with Gov. Timothy M. Kaine: Chris Wallace: It’s the Democrats’ moment to tell America where they would take the country as Barack Obama becomes his party’s nominee. Can he redraw the electoral map with his politics of change? … Let’s talk Virginia —…

My column for the e-zine takes a look at TELs — Tax and Expenditure Limits — and why it’s high-time for Virginia to have such a law on the books. Tomorrow at 10AM, our own Jim Bacon will join me on TQ radio to discuss TELs, the budget mess in general and a lot more.…

Bacon’s Rebellion has given insufficient attention to the indoctrination of Virginia’s young people regarding the “appropriate” way to think about public policy at the state and local level. As schools across our great Dominion open their doors to students, you should consider introducing your 4th or 5th grader (start early!) to the Rebellion. Your precious…

Sure, we’re smart and prosperous, but some things still turn my crank. There’s a New Old Dominion afoot. As evidence, Barack Obama is using the state as an economic model for the rest of the country. Virginians, thanks partly to federal money and nudges, are smarter, more prosperous and more productive than ever before. And,…

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine didn’t offer much new data in his presentation Monday to Virginia’s House and Senate money committees about Virginia’s deteriorating fiscal picture, but he did have one thing to say that will shape how the budget debate unfolds: He won’t ask to increase any General Fund taxes. “We will continue to manage…

Russia’s incursion into Georgia is one of the most dangerous turning points in recent years. In my view, it could lead to far more serious consequences for the U.S. than anything like Iraq and Afghanistan. President George Bush and his successor must make it absolutely plain to Vladimir Putin that such aggression won’t be tolerated.…

There are a surprising number of “Jim Bacons” in the world. Besides me, there is my father, of course. There is the Hollywood reporter, now retired, who went by the byline of James Bacon. There also was the deceased premier of the Australian state of Tasmania. And last but not least, there is my West…

Now comes the news that Virginia is facing a $1 billion budget shortfall in the two-year budget that commenced a month and a half ago. Oops. How did that happen? Let’s dial back the time machine to Jan. 31, when the Washington Post reported, “House Republican leaders warned Thursday that there may be a shortfall…

Breaking news. Eugene Trani has announced that he will step down from his position as president of Virginia Commonwealth University on July 1, 2009, a year earlier than previously planned. Recovering from quintuple coronary bypass surgery, Trani made the decision over the weekend, reports the Times-Dispatch. He will remain employed with the university as a…

Don Harrison is one of my favorite bloggers because of posts like this, where he takes the measure of Karl Rove’s Richmond bashing and finds it…pretty fair: Some may judge a city’s size by its population or its land mass, others may use a different barometer — one that measures small-minded attitudes and the institutional…

It’s like a scene out of “Girls Gone Wild,” except instead of pretty co-eds misbehaving, it’s the college administrators. As a result of this year’s tuition and fee increases, Virginia undergraduate students can expect to pay on average 7.3% more in 2008-09 than they did the prior year. That translates into an additional burden of…

Let’s see, Richmond as Chula Vista, a large, 220,000 population or so suburb of San Diego? Or maybe Aurora, Col.? “It’s not a big town,” said Republican political maven Karl Rove of the former Capital of the Confederacy on CBS’s “Face the Nation” this Sunday. Or how about Tim Kaine being an OK but not…

The WaPo series “Oil Shock” continued today. All in all a good series that has been running since 27 July. How can you not like a series that profiles your past life? The oil field profiled in the 29 July story looks EXACTLY like the oil lease North and West of Bakersfield where our family…