Tag: Stephen D. Haner
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Higher Standard Deduction Popular With Voters
The Northam Administration’s plans to spend most of the additional revenue created by federal tax reform may not prove popular if the public understands the alternative plans for real tax relief under consideration. Three weeks ago, I complained that a poll from the Judy Wason Ford Center at Christopher Newport University didn’t ask the right…
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EITC Grants Do Nothing for Middle Class
The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) proposal that Virginia Democrats are pushing for passage in the 2019 General Assembly is being sold as a major financial boon for the middle class, but is it? “Our working families making $54,000 a year or less are not going to see a big benefit from these federal tax…
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Bacon Bits: Rider U Screws U Know Who
Now that the State Corporation Commission has finally approved Dominion Energy Virginia’s Rider U, mandated by the General Assembly to force us all to pay for underground lines serving just a few customers, let me explain how perfectly this scheme put the company ahead of its customers. (For case details, the Richmond Times-Dispatch has this…
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Clean Virginia: A Powerful Swing That Misses
Clean Virginia’s recent report accusing Virginia’s two investor-owned electric utilities of annually “taxing” their customers $254 or $89 respectively has a strong basis in fact, and beautifully packages the information, but ultimately is flawed and unfair. Which is a shame, because the basic premise is correct. The utility regulation process in Virginia has been badly…
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Fools Rush In: Coal Ash Scene Setter
“I hate to give out directions without knowing what the cost is going to be. There’s far too much of that in government.” That was Senator Frank Wagner of Virginia Beach expressing his deep reservations about various proposals to deal with the 27 million cubic yards of coal ash that Dominion Energy Virginia has collected…
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Green Virtue, Certified By The Hour
Is it enough to be green and virtuous on a month by month basis, or must one be green and virtuous every hour of every day? That is a facetious version of a real question facing the State Corporation Commission as it considers the most recent effort by Dominion Energy Virginia to create a 100-percent…
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Will Yellow Jackets Come To Richmond?
I keep wondering when the new French fashion rage, the yellow safety vest or gilet jaune, finds its way across the Atlantic. The next few weeks may provide some motivation in Virginia, because the General Assembly returns with financial pressures high and consensus in short supply. Tuesday morning the 2019 General Assembly sees its opening…
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Read All About It: The Virginia Way
In his defense, you must realize that Bill Bolling is not a lawyer, so he couldn’t do what some lawyer-legislators do at the end of their careers and become a judge. With the Virginia Retirement System’s pensions based on the highest salary period, you must top out as governor or attorney general or a cabinet…
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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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“Incomplete!” SCC Sends Back Dominion IRP
The State Corporation Commission today rejected the 2018 integrated resource plan (IRP) filed by Dominion Energy Virginia, stamping it “incomplete” and asking the utility for additional information in a supplemental submission. The IRP is only a planning document, and the one for 2017 was just approved by the Commission a few months ago. But in response…
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EITC, TANF and the Benefits Cliff
For low income families receiving assistance in Virginia, their cash benefit from the federal Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is larger – often substantially larger – than the cash provided by Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). A single mother with two small children who has a full-time minimum wage job ($7.25 per hour) qualified…
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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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Updates: Deadly Road Diet? Rider T1 Case
The Powerful Law of Unintended Consequences A raging forest fire is hard to imagine in Northside Richmond, but there could be other emergencies where the city and its residents would come to regret the loss of vehicle travel lanes on Brook Road. A recent deadly fire in California we all watched on television may be…