Transportation Work is Not Over
Recently many bloggers seem to be working under the assumption that transportation is done for the rest of year. Everyone has apparently forgotten that there is still a special session in September to work out this problem. Our budget was simply passed to prevent holding up the entire state just to fix one problem area. This is not over.
Certainly the House GOP now has much more leverage to prevent a tax increase now, but another tax increase isn't necessarily needed to fix transportation. Dems and some GOPs will say that we need "x" amount of new money for transportation. Since I have never heard anyone say it had to be done any certain way, why is everyone assuming this issue is dead?
Perhaps the Albo/Rust/Frederick plan will work with raising fees and debt to fund solutions. Maybe it will be a regional taxing authority that allows NOVA to levy taxes on themselves. Maybe it will be all debt. It might even be a public-private partnership idea.
At any rate folks, transportation still might get fixed. Why do some people think we have to do it with another sales or gas tax increase? Why don't we give all ideas equal benefit?
Certainly the House GOP now has much more leverage to prevent a tax increase now, but another tax increase isn't necessarily needed to fix transportation. Dems and some GOPs will say that we need "x" amount of new money for transportation. Since I have never heard anyone say it had to be done any certain way, why is everyone assuming this issue is dead?
Perhaps the Albo/Rust/Frederick plan will work with raising fees and debt to fund solutions. Maybe it will be a regional taxing authority that allows NOVA to levy taxes on themselves. Maybe it will be all debt. It might even be a public-private partnership idea.
At any rate folks, transportation still might get fixed. Why do some people think we have to do it with another sales or gas tax increase? Why don't we give all ideas equal benefit?
posted by GOPHokie @ 12:29 AM
3 Comments:
At 7/16/2006 1:19 PM,
Brian said…
Is it truly the Republican line that in order for NoVA to get anything meaningful out of the state it can't get it out of the general budget but has to set up a regime of taxes that are only levied on NoVA to get it? NoVA already pays more than it gets in return, does the Republican party have no interest in getting NoVA votes for the foreseeable future?
At 7/16/2006 4:29 PM,
GOPHokie said…
Actually we want to use general fund money to fund NOVA transportation but the dems wont allow it b/c we might "rob education and mental health of general fund dollars that would have overwise went to these core services".
Thats why there basically arent many other options.
At 7/17/2006 3:06 PM,
Brian said…
Well propose cuts then, and be honest. Reduce teacher's salaries first, that'll be a real winner. But don't promote this myth that we can get a bond on a 1 year surplus.
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