Bacon's Rebellion

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The Dance of the Pitchforks: Bacon’s Rebellion on the March

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by

James A. Bacon
in

The October 23, 2006, edition of Bacon’s Rebellion is now online. Don’t miss a single issue — subscribe here for free.

This week’s columns include:

The Devolution Solution
Any meaningful transportation reform would make fast-growth counties responsible for their secondary roads. The trick is coaxing them into going along.
by James A. Bacon
Catching Crayfish Craig
Understanding how Virginia grew a Nobel Price winner can inform everything from budget discussions to economic development strategies.
by Doug Koelemay

Big (Gray, Brown) Sky Country
Afflicted by global climate change and energy-inefficient human settlement patterns, my home state of Montana is on an unsustainable growth path.
by EM Risse

New Ideas, New Leaders
Transportation, education and the environment… We can solve these problems without throwing money at them. It just takes fresh ideas and bold leaders willing to implement them.
by Michael Thompson

Conservative Dilemma
Some choice. Conservatives in the 10th district can vote for Frank Wolf, a 26-year incumbent who has drifted leftward in recent years, or a former Clinton-era bureaucrat.
by Phil Rodokanakis

My Votes in the First District
I know you’ve been waiting breathlessly to hear how I’ll be voting in November. The suspense is over at last.
by James Atticus Bowden

When Journalists Attack
As the 2006 political season comes to a head, journalists are becoming more hostile to bloggers who invade their space.
by Conaway Haskins

Lighting a Fire Under the Mule
Barnie Day planned to deliver this speech to a Sorenson Institute event earlier this month, but the program changed. Rather than waste a perfectly good speech, he shared it with Bacon’s Rebellion.
by Barnie Day

Nice & Curious Questions
Left Out, or What Happened to Zachary Taylor?
by Edwin S. Clay III and Patricia Bangs

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5 responses to “The Dance of the Pitchforks: Bacon’s Rebellion on the March”

  1. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    In New Ideas, New Leaders by author Thompson, he states: We can solve these problems without throwing money at them.”

    but then he goes on to reference the Reason Foundations’ estimates of the need for $20 Billion dollars for the Wash Metro Area… and urges the Va GA to “move on these numbers now and figure out how to reach the goals outlined in this important study.”

    Okay.. mixed messages here…

    but I would point out that in the Reason Foundation’s study.. they break down the money to individual driver on a per day basis – which appears to be on the order of $2 or $3 per day.

    So – how about a referenda for NoVa (or Wash Metro) that says:

    Question 1:
    “would you be willing to pay $4 in tolls per day to build the following (then list the projects)”?

    OR

    Question 2:
    “Would you be willing to pay DOUBLE the gas tax and send it to Richmond VDOT who will then promise to build (list the same projects).”

    Strangely enough – Question 2 was, in fact, the question put to voters in the NoVa in 2002 and so we already have that answer.

    This is a no brainer folks.

    The average commuter in the DC area spends that much money on coffee/donuts at WaWa every morning.

  2. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    The idea we can solve any problem without money is crazy.

    The $2 or $3 a day you mention is just about double the gas tax based on your other previous calculations. But if we did that we’d also get at least some money from throughot the state, and it could still be spent throughout the state. And the gas tax will tend to reduce ALL VMT, which tolls. won’t.

    One of the problems with the 2002 vote was that the state didn NOT make any such promises. If they did so now, probably no one would believe them.

    As it stands now, roads are supported by more than just the gas tax. Are the new roads to be supported only by tolls? If so what happens to the rest of the money we still contribute as before? Will they be reduced across the board, supported by only those who pay the tolls, or are you willing to create a deduction against real estate and income taxes based on tolls paid?

    Or all the tolls merely a targeted tax increase?

  3. Toomanytaxes Avatar
    Toomanytaxes

    How about the real question that NoVA voters would like to see on the ballot? Do you favor APF authority?

    The 2002 referendum offered a few specific projects with the bulk of the money to be handled by a CTB-light. The clear goal was to have taxpayers fund roads near some landholdings of a few.

    We need reforms first; then we can talk about money. Otherwise, we continue to give the drug addict more money with the hope that he will use it wisely to break his drug habit.

  4. Larry Gross Avatar
    Larry Gross

    re: “The idea we can solve any problem without money is crazy.”

    The idea that no problem can be solved without additional money – is crazy.

    Take that Creed to companies in business to make a profit in an environment with competitors lusting after the moment that more money is spend without adequate ROI.

    TMT has it right.

    Take a CTB heavy with development interests.

    Tax all Virginians and send that money to the CTB.

    Then let raw political power be the driving force behind distribution of that money – for transportation projects in name only.

    and what you get is what we have….

    Roads (and transit) built for development interests and not for congestion relief and mobility for citizens.

    and the solution is …. “TA DA” – let’s take even more money from citizens and it to the CTB.. to continue the Status Quo..

    We simply have a bad system that is not focused on transportation and mobility but on sucking more money out of ordinary citizens pockets… to be given to those who depend on that money to provide them with more development venues.

    Taxpayers clearly see this. They clearly saw the classic bait and switch tactics of the 2002 Referenda.

    Taxpayers were clearly focused on the SECOND question of the phrase:

    “Fool me once, shame on you – fool me twice, shame on me”

    I will predict that if you put the same question the same way to the same folks in NoVa – the answer won’t change.

    The only question that will get a “yes” answer will be one in which the money stays in NoVa and citizens believe that the projects will actually benefit them.

  5. Ray Hyde Avatar
    Ray Hyde

    The only question that will get a “yes” answer will be one in which the money stays in NoVa and citizens believe that the projects will actually benefit them.

    I agree with your analysis of the 2002 referenda.

    I’m not sure that what is on the table now is that much different: NOVA still pays what it paid before, and then it pays for its own needs.

    What is wrong with an offset, for a period of years? Let those guys in Farmville buy their own stuff for a change.

    Give me an example of a problem that can be solved without money, and I’ll show you an example that is trivial. You can’t really be serious about this.

    “We simply have a bad system that is not focused on transportation and mobility but on sucking more money out of ordinary citizens pockets… to be given to those who depend on that money to provide them with more development venues.”

    This I don’t understand. We justify Metro for the development it creates, and we villify roads for the same reason.

    We claim we want a market system, but when the market buys things we don’t like, then we say the market is distorted. To correct it we propose to put in place toll roads that are targeted against only certain areas. We will create a market for high priced core area dwellings (I won’t call them homes) by artificially raising the price of existing roads, ostensibly for the purpose of constructing new roads, which we know will never happen.

    And we think this will solve all our problems.

    Nuts. As long as there are more jobs in the core area than we can supply with laoborers using both the highways and Metro, we will have congestion. If we ever get rid of congestion, Metro will fail.

    We have so much invested in Metro (in capital, operating costs, and agenda driven drivel) that we cannot allow it to “fail”. Therefor we will make a pact with the pollution devil, congestion, because congestion (and pollution) is our friend, so far as Metro goes.

    I gotta tell you, if congestion is necessary to make Metro marginally full of people, then we need to re-assess how much pollution we charge to autos, and how much we charge to Metro, as an externality.

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