Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Judge: “Taxation without Representation is Constitutional”

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by

James A. Bacon
in

It’s indeed a sad day when a judge can rule that (as reported by the Washington Post):

“nothing in the state or federal constitution blocks the General Assembly from setting up a regional “political subdivision” for the purpose of taxation. And the regional authority’s members are not required to be elected directly by the people, he ruled.” (emphasis added)

No wonder the NVTA and the cabal of politicians pushing through this shameful bill (HB 3202), went shopping for a judge in the People’s Republic of Arlington! And even though, Circuit Judge Kendrick finds himself in a conflict-of-interest–as he is an Arlington resident and by definition a defendant in the suit brought by the NVTA to validate the bonds–he refused to recuse himself and let a disinterested court rule on the case.

If the Virginia Supreme Court doesn’t overturn this decision on an expedited basis, Virginians will have done a full circle. We will become the subjects of unelected and unaccounted monarchs–only this time, the “monarchs” will be a bunch of do-good liberals and other profit-seeking businesses who plan on fleecing our wallets.

Our founding fathers must be turning in their graves…

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19 responses to “Judge: “Taxation without Representation is Constitutional””

  1. James Atticus Bowden Avatar
    James Atticus Bowden

    The monarchs are the black-robed priest-kings called judges.

    The other folks are just minions made wealthy by the corrupt crown, playing the powers to serve their interests.

    This is disgraceful.

    What is worse, is that the General Assembly and the Governor will do nothing to correct the judge – they are complicit in this conspiracy.

  2. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    No, Ed Risse is the new monarch who will lead us into “functional” human settlement patterns. Just ask Jim Bacon.

  3. Reid Greenmun Avatar
    Reid Greenmun

    Sheesh! Waht is all the fuss?

    We all know that Monarchs doing as they are directed by BIG business is always in the best interest of “the region”.

    Anyone that disagrees is ignorant and needs to be “educated”.

    I mean, just look at the human settlement patters dumb masses choose when left to their own decisions!!

    We need more all-appointing regional ruling entities.

    It is good for business.

  4. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Would anyone agree that this is the result of inaction on dealing with transportation funding? Maybe the GOP rejection of a long-term, sustainable revenue stream for transportation led to this? 20 years since any increase and now the regional authorities are doing something.

    You make your bed, you sleep in it.

  5. NoVA Scout Avatar
    NoVA Scout

    Some of the folks hollering the loudest about this bear a huge responsibility for it. By aiding and abetting a crop of mediocre pols who rode the No New Taxes nag to elected office, we ended up with a bunch of dim lights who found themselves caught between the electorally uncomfortable (in 2007) rock of inaction on important issues and the hard place of having to find revenues without overtly voting for tax increases. So they resorted to subterfuge and half-measures and hoped they could scam the voters into sending them back. The result was this ugly hybrid legislation. I yield nothing to Mr. Rodokanakis in my sense that this is a mess (although I doubt that it’s illegal because of the unelected nature of the regional authorities)and a far cry from what one would get from competent, public spirited legislators, but would suggest he look in a mirror if he wants to find one of the reasons that this came to pass.

  6. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Now let me try to figure this out. The Arlington Judge is supposed to be in a conflict of interest because he lives in Arlington. By that logic, all federal judges would have to be foreigners. ALl state judges would have to be from another state. And all local judges should come from another venue. Then we have this nonsense about judges being “monarchs.”

    Can we please raise the intellectual level of this blog?Once the no-tax Republican blowhards take over, all logic disappears and a cheezy form of dogma repleaces it.

  7. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    8:13 AM

    What?

    “no-tax Republican blowhards take over”

    They raised the sales tax rate to 5%. Where did all that increased tax revenue go?

    Not to transportation. Those who want to constantly increase taxes are the real “blowhards” who want to hold our transportation infrastructure hostage as another excuse to hike taxes.

  8. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    I’ll tell you why the “No, no, no” crowd is a bunch of blowhards:

    In 2004, when the state budget was in bad shape, and Governor Warner was pushing for a tax increase, the GOP-led House Appropriations committee created a memo of what spending and programs would have to be cut and eliminated to balance the budget without raising taxes.

    The Callahan memo made the Republicans blink. It made their supporters blink as well. I don’t remember any cry, protest, or even letter to the editor saying, “Yes Virginia, let’s make those cuts.”

    Until the “No, no, no” crowd is willing to publicly embrace and enact the cuts necessary to balancing out their tax policies, they are, in fact, blowhards.

    Does the state currently collect enough tax money to improve transportation?

    The Democrats, by and large, say no, and they want to see more.

    The Republicans, by and large, say yes, but lack the brains and the guts necessary to identify and make the necessary spending cuts.

    That, my firends, is how we arrive at our present quagmire – where a judge says that unaccountable regional entitites can tax us.

    Considering the disingenuous people we elect to office and the gullible people (who think we can have everything for nothing) who are electing them, it feels to be just about what we deserve.

  9. Phil Rodokanakis Avatar
    Phil Rodokanakis

    Anon 8:13

    You don’t understand–you really need to read some of the motions that were filed in this lawsuit.

    A bond validation suit is no ordinary lawsuit. No one is arguing that a judge that lives in a particular jurisdiction should recuse himeslf on routine cases that come up in his jurisdiction.

    In a bond validation suit, the state sues the locality in which they’re trying to get the courts to validate the suits. By definition, any resident of that locality becomes a defendant in such a lawsuit.

    I realize that this is not an ordinary concept, but I didn’t want to get into a bunch of legalese.

  10. Darrell -- Chesapeake Avatar
    Darrell — Chesapeake

    You know, who really cares. The government will always do what it wants. But rest assured while all this crap is going on, people are thinking.

    They are thinking the same way they did when they made the decision to move out of the cities to the suburbs. The same thoughts that created ‘snowbirds’. Thoughts that led to the creation of Virginia itself.

    There is a Fundamental Change coming alright. Call it the Rust Belt of urbanism.

    http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/RetirementandWills/RetireInStyle/RetireLikeRoyaltyInaLowCostParadise.aspx

  11. Michael Vandergrift Avatar
    Michael Vandergrift

    “Do-good liberals?” The alternative would then, logically, be “do-bad conservatives?” I consider myself to be liberal and I try to do good (I work for a non-profit organization providing adult day health services and support to a largely impoverished population). But I also happen to be fiscally conservative, so don’t envision myself ever “fleecing someone’s wallet.” The reality is that our statewide transportation infrastructure must be repaired, strengthened, and improved. Sadly, no one wants to pay the costs. Well, as the old saying goes, “you get what you paid for,” we haven’t paid for anything, so we get nothing.

  12. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    MV: Excellent.

  13. Phil Rodokanakis Avatar
    Phil Rodokanakis

    MV

    I keep on hearing this argument being repeated like a broken record, but unfortunately no one wants to repeat the only valid counter-argument.

    We can build new roads without the state investing a penny! They’re called private/public partnerships. You let the private partner build the roads and they then collect tolls to repay the construction bonds and make a profit.

    There have been several proposals submitted by the private sector to add new lane capacity to major thoroughfares that are currently choked in gridlock. The state never seems to act on these proposals, even though they profess to be a big supporter of private/public partnerships.

    Unfortunately, what the state has recently supported and masqueraded as a private/public partnership is the non-competitively bid award to Bechtel and their partners to build the ill-conceived and very expensive Metro extension to Dulles Airport.

    Are we so conditioned by the nanny state to always look for government-based solutions? As Jim Bacon has most eloquently stated time and time again, we’re always going to be plagued with traffic gridlock, unless we introduce some elements of congestion pricing in the way we use certain chocked road arteries.

    The state solution of raising taxes, to build more roads, never answers our transportation needs–it’s always too little, too late and leads to even more congestion.

  14. Groveton Avatar
    Groveton

    “We can build new roads without the state investing a penny! They’re called private/public partnerships. You let the private partner build the roads and they then collect tolls to repay the construction bonds and make a profit.”.

    So, now we get taxed to pay into the transportation fund.

    In the future, we’ll still get taxed to pay into the transportation fund only we’ll also pay tolls to drive on these private / public partnership roads.

    Will we stop having to pay taxes into the transportation fund since we’ll be driving on corporate roads – rather than public roads?

    The answer is No. We will continue to pay the gas tax and other taxes for transportation. In fact, we will continue to pay the same taxes as we always have. Howwver, we will now also pay tolls.

    And, since these are congestion tolls, they will only affect congested areas – namely NoVA, Richmond suburbs and Tidewater.

    So, what we have here is another transfer of wealth scheme. The people already paying the most taxes continue to pay the most taxes but also now pay tolls.

    And the people paying the least taxes pay even less as money that would have been spent on urban and urbanizing transportation can be funneled to their localities. Maybe they will take this opportuity to lower their real estate taxes as they did after the sales tax hike (which was supposed to go for education). And, once they lower their real estate taxes they will have an even bigger defecit between what the pay for schools and public safety so they’ll need an even bigger transfer from the counties generating the surplus.

    Perhaps only Cuba has a more complete wealth trasnfer scheme in place. And Lord knows that plan has really helped the Cuban people.

    Quit playing games.

    Virginia is collecting too little tax money for ths state’s needs.

    Raise taxes and fix the transportation program.

    The abusive driver fees were a good start.

  15. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “We can build new roads without the state investing a penny!…”

    Except now we have to build them, not the state, and we will have to maintain them (probably to state specifications) and we have to pay for them anyway.

    What’s the difference if we spend the money or the state spends the money, other than the additional cost of profit?

    “Free, no cost!”

    Yeah, right.

    RH

  16. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “There have been several proposals submitted by the private sector to add new lane capacity to major thoroughfares that are currently choked in gridlock.”

    I think it is called cherry picking. There have also been a number of proposals to provide commercial health insurance – to young healthy adults.

  17. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    “As Jim Bacon has most eloquently stated time and time again, we’re always going to be plagued with traffic gridlock, unless we introduce some elements of congestion pricing …”

    Right, so we should send the congestion bill to those employers that draw in the most workers to the most congested areas. We can have “congestion pricing” without having it attached to the roadways.

    RH

  18. Phil Rodokanakis Avatar
    Phil Rodokanakis

    Groverton said:

    “Raise taxes and fix the transportation program.”

    We’ve been there and done that. It hasn’t worked. As long as the state continues to build roads it’s like government welfare programs–there is never enough money to take care of all the folks who want to live on the dole.

    Your recipe follows the path taken by a fool who does the same thing time and time again and expects different results each time.

    Groverton also said:

    “The abusive driver fees were a good start.”

    Some 175,000 Virginians disagree with you based on the number that signed the petition against the abuser fees–and I suspect the number of Virginians actually opposed to these fees is much, much higher.

    And of course, you don’t seem to mind that some of these fees are patently unconstitutional. Why let the Constitution get in the way of progress, eh?

  19. c flynn Avatar
    c flynn

    “Virginia is collecting too little tax money for ths state’s needs.

    Raise taxes and fix the transportation program.

    The abusive driver fees were a good start.”

    Strike 3…you’re out

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