Rick Sincere has an excellent post (compete with video!) of the press conference yesterday at which a proposal to create greater budget transparency was introduced. It’s a good step forward — Virginians deserve to know where their money is being spent and, perhaps, legislators and others will feel a greater degree of responsibility for ensuring…

We can argue in endless circles whether Dominion and other Virginia power companies need to build major new power plants, or whether conservation and renewable energy sources can meet Virginia’s energy needs for the foreseeable future. What is not up for argument is that Virginia can do far more than it currently does to encourage…

If you thought Virginia’s payday lenders were bad, things could be a lot worse! India, with its growing economy, is experiencing a bank-led consumer lending boom. As in the United States, some borrowers fall behind in their repayments. Even in India, it appears, some people get caught on a treadmill of indebtedness. But in India,…

Poquoson taxpayers rejoice. And taxpayers in Lexington, York County, Henrico County and Scott County, you can go ahead and rejoice, too. In its new study, “No Guarantees: Rating the Cost Efficiency of Virginia’s School Districts,” the Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute (CPLPI) rates Virginia school districts by how much educational bang they deliver for the…

In 2005, Virginians paid public schools $10.8 billion in state and local taxes to educate 1.78 million students, for an average per-pupil-cost of $9,202. What did we get for our money? As the Clare Booth Luce Policy Institute (CBLPI) asks: Are school districts putting tax dollars to the best and highest use? Do Virginians get…

The biggest interest in the possible sale of Landmark’s media assets centers on the Weather Channel and its companion website, weather.com. That’s not surprising. In today’s Wall Street Journal, there’s some guesswork from SNL Kaine’s Derek Baine on how to value those two properties, and the result is rather amazing: …the Web business may be…

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine has proposed two new consumer-protection measures. One would require businesses and state agencies to inform consumers when their personal identification information has been improperly acquired, accessed or released to the public. The other would give Virginians the ability to freeze their credit reports until any identity theft or fraud issues are…

Landmark Communications, which owns papers like the Virginian-Pilot, Roanoke Times and Style Weekly, could be up for sale: The Web sites said the Batten family has hired advisers to sell its Norfolk-based Landmark Communications Inc. An announcement about the decision is scheduled to be made today. The company could be sold in pieces, the sites…

Home ownership is a good thing. As Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson observes, people who own homes take better care of them than people who rent. Homeowners invest in their property and stabilize neighborhoods. Perhaps most important, home ownership gives people an opportunity to accumulate wealth. It gives them something to protect. It gives them…

Teenagers are a menace on the highways. Not only are they more likely than adults to drive recklessly under the influence of alcohol, they’re more likely to drive recklessly even when they’re not under the influence of alcohol — as in, when they’re “texting.” According to Tyler Whitley in the Times-Dispatch, a recent poll of…

Sad news, folks: After two-and-a-half years of supporting Bacon’s Rebellion by funding our Road to Ruin project, the Piedmont Environmental Council is letting its sponsorship expire. With financial backing from the Prince Charitable Trusts and the Agua Funds, the PEC had given Bacon’s Rebellion free reign to write about critical issues facing Virginia, especially those…

Bacon’s Rebellion does not endorse candidates for any government position, but we do take pride when regular contributors (or former contributors) seek to elevate themselves from the easy work of punditry to the hard job of actual governance. Thus, we are delighted to take note that former Bacon’s Rebellion columnist and blogger Barnie Day is…

Well, I’m back from North Carolina, where I watched Wake Forest (my wife’s alma mater) triumph over the University of Connecticut in the Meineke Car Care Bowl. (Yes, that’s actually the name of the Bowl game — not one of your more prestigious events.) Thank you to EMR for stimulating discussion during my absence of…

No more blogging for a few days. I’m off to North Carolina to visit the in-laws, and my laptop has died on me. Everybody enjoy the holidays!

After a brief hiatus, I’m back to the Economy 4.0 series. It’s a truism that building our human capital — educating and training our citizenry — is the single most significant challenge that Virginia faces in the early 21st century. In the latest column, I take it for granted that our efforts to date have…