I went to Senator Watkins' town hall meeting last night. He and Delegate Ware went over the items they thought would come up this year during the session. One of them was the budget.
He talked about the surplus and how some of it was going into the rainy day fund. He said the rainy day fund was down to $300 or $400 million, but a couple of years ago it was over $1 billion. Of course, he talked about taxes they want to cut. The food tax, the death tax, and I think there was one more but I can't remember what it is. The thing that kills me is when they talk about lowering taxes they always use the phrase "it's going to cost us." When he mentioned cutting 1.5% from the food tax he said that it is going to "cost us" about $200 million. He basically made it sound like after they lower the food tax, lower the death tax, and put money back in the rainy day fund there would not be anything left of the surplus.
During the question-and-answer part of the meeting 103198 asked what can be done about stopping the rapid expansion of government. Delegate Ware has proposed an amendment (HJ 525) that would limit the growth of government to inflation plus the increase in population. Anything collected over that amount would be split evenly between the rainy day fund and a rebate check to the taxpayers. Unfortunately, he says it will be tough to get passed. Senator Watkins didn't seem real crazy about the idea.
Senator Watkins tried to blame the growth of government over the past several years to the increases in the items mandated by the federal government and the items they have little to no control over. I personally think he's full of and I still don't trust him.
Another big topic was transportation. A lot of people seem to favor increasing the gas tax since it's a user fee. I wonder if those people feel the same way about public education? Those that use it pay for it? One other interesting idea that was brought up by someone in attendance was charging those convicted of crimes a fee that helps pay for victims services. That's a user fee that makes sense. Several other issues were brought up, but nothing too terribly interesting.
I said it last year when the budget raping the taxpayers of Virginia went through that this year they would look to increase the gas tax.
I hate it when I'm right.