Search results for: “amazon”
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Welcome to New Jersey: Virginia Out-Migration Edition
A few weeks ago I cited United Van Line data suggesting that more people continued in 2017 to move out of Virginia than moved in. Now Hamilton Lombard at the University of Virginia’s Demographic Research Group has confirmed the trend using Internal Revenue Service data. Total population continued to grow last year thanks to natural…
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A Rack Of Increases Coming To Your Electric Bill
Here they go again, using your electric bill to pay for government spending programs and blurring the distinction between utility costs and taxes. Everybody heard Thursday about that new coal ash management program adding to the pantheon of rate adjustment clauses (RACs) driving up electricity bills. Later in the day, with far less notice, a…
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The Exact Moment Virginia Changed Forever
For veteran observers of the Virginia General Assembly, a brief oral exchange between an Amazon executive and the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday was a bright flash of insight into Virginia’s new political landscape. You do not see people, especially not people seeking a major expenditure of state funds, get that cavalier…
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No Quick Fix for I-66
When the Interstate 66 Express Lanes opened a year ago, they triggered a maelstrom of controversy as Northern Virginia commuters encountered new driving patterns. Motorists were particularly irate at peak rush-hour tolls rising as high as $47.50 to drive just a few miles on I-66 inside the Beltway. Virginia transportation officials said, never fear, people…
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Pushing the Limits of Virginia’s Debt Capacity
by Richard W. Hall-Sizemore The Commonwealth has been on a borrowing/building spree for the past few years and, as a result, its options for dealing with capital needs in the future may be constrained. Since 1991, Virginia has voluntarily limited itself to the amount of tax-supported debt it would incur for capital projects. This “debt…
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Virginia Back to No. 1, or Close to It
Virginia’s economic growth rate may have lagged the national average last year (See Don Rippert’s post on the subject), but outside perceptions of Virginia have changed for the better. Virginia ranked 4th in Forbes magazine’s 2018 Best States for Business ranking and 4th in CNBC’s Best States for Business ranking. Most recently, on the strength…
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Bacon’s Rebellion 2018 — Year of the Pothead
Other blogs publish a list of their most heavily trafficked posts of the previous year, so I guess Bacon’s Rebellion will succumb to peer pressure and do the same. If there’s any conclusion to be drawn from the 2018 list of the Bacon’s Rebellion Top Twelve stories, it’s that our readers — or perhaps random web…
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The Cloud Services Boom
If it seems like the cloud-services industry is the hottest economic sector in Virginia — outside the new Amazon East Coast half headquarters — that’s probably because cloud services is one of the hottest economic sectors in the United States. This chart published by the National Bureau of Economic Research shows how cloud services expenditures…
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JLARC: Discount Incentive Benefits By 90%
Virginia’s legislative audit agency started its most recent analysis of Virginia’s economic development incentive grant programs with an assumption boosters would quickly dispute – that 90 percent of the economic activity they produce would have happened anyway.
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Governor Hints At Local Business Tax Reform
On Friday, after skirting the topic in a major address to a business conference in Williamsburg, Governor Ralph Northam told a reporter that “he’s planning to ask the General Assembly to tackle business tax reform,” adding it would be “comprehensive.” The reporter asked about it because of other comments made by Secretary of Finance Aubrey…
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IRP Rejection Part of a Pattern of Trouble
The State Corporation Commission’s decision Friday to reject the Dominion Energy Virginia integrated resource plan is just the latest sign the energy package sold by the utility to a compliant General Assembly in early 2018 still has an uncertain future. Two headline elements of the legislation – the promised massive renewable projects and a rebuild of…
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Fralin Donates $50 Million for Roanoke Research Center
Heywood Fralin, his wife Cynthia, and the Horace Fralin Charitable Trust have announced a $50 million gift to Virginia Tech to attract top-ranked scientists to the university’s Roanoke medical research center. The gift is twice the size of the university’s previous single largest donation. “I came up with the size based on what I felt…
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To Get Useful Answers, Ask Correct Questions
It’s all in how you ask the question. The Judy Ford Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University has done a pre-General Assembly poll testing various issues that may dominate the 2019 session. The headlines are driven by the favorable and unfavorable rankings (ask me about President Tariff Man this morning as I survey…
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2019 General Assembly Session – Privatizing Public Roads in McLean, Va
Judge Dillon’s revenge. Development vs transportation has been a long running battle in Virginia. Northern Virginia’s local government politicians never met a developer (or developer’s campaign contribution) they didn’t love. Virginia’s state legislators love NoVa growth since it provides more state tax money to spread around like party favors to their downstate constituencies. However, those…
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Where Will 30,000 More Tech Degrees Come From?
There are many moving parts to the Amazon, Inc., deal to invest $2.5 billion and hire 25,000 employees in Northern Virginia. In one of the most important deliverables, the Commonwealth has committed to increase the number of bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science and related fields by 25,000 to 35,000 over and above the…