Posted on 01/22/2007 5:29:05 AM PST by shrinkermd
Virginia was once a solidly conservative Republican state, but in recent years it has tilted Democratic. A big reason for the shift is the GOP's recent love affair with higher taxes. In the 1990s Republican Governors George Allen and Jim Gilmore won sweeping victories running as tax cutters. Then in 2004 Richmond Republicans enacted the largest tax increase in the commonwealth's history -- a $1 billion hike in sales and tobacco taxes. Now they are flirting with another tax hike even though the state has a Blue Ridge Mountain-high $900 million budget surplus.
Why? The hot political issue in northern Virginia is traffic congestion. Though the state budget has doubled in 10 years, road building hasn't kept pace with population. "Not a penny of the 2004 tax increase went to fund the state's highest need, roads," fumes GOP state Senator Ken Cucinelli.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
I can't read anymore - I am disgusted. Kiss VA goodbye as a red state.
Governments at evry level in the USA have proven endlessly that they are irresponsible with money. The last thing government needs is MORE money.
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. - H. L. Mencken
[E]lections amount to no more than choosing between the scum that floats to the top of the barrel and the dregs that settle to the bottom. - L. Neil Smith
Giving power and money to Congress is like giving liquor and car keys to teenage boys. - P.J. O'Rourke
Compromise is: getting rid of your principles a little bit at a time. - Patrick Lear
Your optimism is admirable.
Spreading DC cancer. There was a time when Montgomery Co, MD and Northern VA were quite different.
I don't have any problem with raising fees on cars and trucks to pay for road construction. That's how road construction should be financed--not thru general tax revenues. Maybe I'd throw gas taxes into the mix as well. The idea is to hand the bill for these roads to the people who are using them, and preferably in proportion to their use.
During an economic boom, like we've had the past 5 years or so, government coffers swell, and just like drunken sailers, politicians, liberal AND conservative alike, can't resist spending it.
BS! For the most part it's the libs migrating to VA and bringing along their political poison.
Tax hiking Republicans lead to Democrat victories.
Works every time.
A lot of it has to do with the boom in Northern Virginia. NoVa is where the population and the money are now concentrated and unfortuantely a lot of these newbies are lib or lib-leaning.
They already tax the heck out of cars and trucks in VA. I'm just not sure where all that money goes.
It's part of a national trend. The Northeast is solidly 'Rat and the blue tide from there is inching southward and westward. Before '06, it had already picked off PA, and in '06 OH went blue. So the Great Lakes are pretty much ringed with blue except for IN, a lone fortress resisting the tide (for now). VA will likely be the first southern state to fall to the wave of blue unless something dramatic changes. If VA and OH go 'Rat in the '08 Presidential contest, it's time to say hello to President Hillary or President Obama, because I just don't see where we go to replace the electoral votes of those states.
I'm only a stone's throw from the NC border. If they make things too bad I'll just jump ship. I doubt NC would be much better though. I'll have to remember to change my FR flag. :p
That's the problem. They use it for other things.
Thank you for calling it as it is. It's the growing liberal population in NoVA that is moving the state more to the left.
Well said.
"Governments at evry level in the USA have proven endlessly that they are irresponsible with money."
Correction. REPUBLICANS at every level in the USA have proven endlessly that they are irresponsible with money.
If I recall the 2004 increase was first posed by Mark Warner as a response to the brief economic downturn (esp. the dot-bomb casualties in NOVA).
When that proved not to be quite a big problem, the proposed increase was justified by a need to improve NOVA roads.
Next time around I hope the voters will demand a real plan before allowing the legislature to raise taxes. Anything that begins with "more roads in NOVA" should be suspect, since there is simply no room for "more roads in NOVA", esp. inside the Beltway.
It's not the entire state that's going blue, only the nothernmost region adjacent to DC/MD, whose epicenter is Alexandria and Arlington but has grown to include Vienna, Fairfax, Falls Church, and Reston.
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