Too Conservative

One of the greatest accomplishments of the framers of our Constitution is, in my opinion, protecting the freedom of the press. By doing so, journalists and editorial writers can sit back, criticize and opine about the public policy issues of the day in complete safety.  I believe this is one of the greatest feats of our Constitutional structure because it keeps these journalists far, far away from actual policy making.  A perfect example of what I mean shows up in today’s Washington Post, in yet another editorial shot across Gov.-Elect McDonnell’s bow on transportation.

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The Post’s only solution to transportation is raising taxes.  That’s it.  Throughout the campaign, they praised and endorsed Creigh Deeds for being the only candidate willing to say that he’d raise gas taxes in order to fund transportation.  Their praise of his “transportation realism” was so helpful to the voters, Deeds got crushed by 18 points.

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Gas taxes are regressive and they’re unpopular.  As recently as 2008, a majority of Americans favored temporary suspensions of the federal gas tax.  Whenever the price of gas starts edging up, gas taxes become an issue again.  There’s a good reason Virginia hasn’t raised the gas tax since 1987 – no rational politician wants to do that.  Yet despite the unpopularity of gas taxes, the Post is constantly banging the drum for a gas tax increase.  This is the only thing they can think of, and with good reasoon. They’re Democrats caught up in the constantly contradicted belief that the only way to raise revenue is to raise taxes, just like their pal Deeds.

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The gas tax, frankly, is part of the problem with transportation funding and certainly isn’t the solution.  Gas tax revenues are hard to predict and fluctuate significantly more than other forms of taxation or fees.  As people drive less and cars become more fuel efficient, the less revenue the gas tax is going to generate.  Yet clearly, the goal of Democrats – both federally and locally – is to get people out of their cars and onto public transportation as much as possible because of climate change.  Thus, you’ve got conflicting government priorities here – one the one hand, you’ve got the Congress handing out tax incentives for people to buy hybrid vehicles (which my wife and I took advantage of in 2008 when we bought our Mercury Mariner hybrid) and you’ve got them appropriating billions for the Cash for Clunkers program all designed to reduce the amount of gas people consume – thus reducing infrastructure funding.  On the other hand, you’ve got a federal infrastructure investment system that is most successful in raising money when people drive gas guzzling cars and drive them often and far.  It doesn’t make a lot of sense.  This is why Gov. Elect McDonnell and those who actually are responsible for fixing the transportation crisis (not just whining about it) have been trying to find a dedicated source of funding for transportation in Virginia that isn’t tied to the gas tax.

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But hey – when your knee jerk solution to every problem is to throw money at it, raising taxes is pretty much the only thing you know how to do.  I guess we can’t really fault the Post’s editorial board for that.  They’re just victims of their own ideology.  The unfortunate thing is that no matter what solutions McDonnell and Connaughton come up with, the Post is going to bash them as insufficient.  Fortunately, most of us in Northern Virginia don’t pay too much attention to the Post’s editorial page anyway.  Why should we?  Do any of them actually live in Virginia?  I doubt it.

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Jan 05th by Brian S

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Setting up an interesting “what if” scenario, DNC Chairman Tim Kaine believes that he would been re-elected Governor if he could run—not only have won, but won “pretty easily” in his own words. Obviously, he’s off his rocker, but Lowell took the ball and ran with it, which you can read here.

I disagree with Lowell’s key point: his belief that McDonnell would pass on the race against Kaine. Kaine’s approval ratings, while up until recently above water, have never been spectacular, and his legislative track record is a long list of failures. His one shining moment—the response to Virginia Tech—was shared, in part, by McDonnell (even leading several editorials praising the pair’s work that McDonnell featured in early ads). And with Virginia’s history of running counter to the White House, I’m unconvinced that the 2008 elections would be much of a deterence.

So if it ended up being McDonnell vs. Kaine in 2009, who would win? Given McDonnell’s talent as a candidate and the national environment, I think he still would have pulled it out, but the election—and quite probably Kaine’s four years as governor—would have looked a lot different.

My thoughts on how it may have played out are below the fold. What are yours? Post them in the comments or if you don’t like the formatting and prefer to email them, send it to vablogger [at] gmail.com. If we get a lot, I’ll post some of the best ones at the end of the week.

(Read the rest of this entry…)

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Dec 08th by VA Blogger

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The campaign launched www.bob4va.com tonight, which will become the GOTV and election night center online for all things McDonnell.

Tomorrow night’s speech in Richmond will be live streamed on the site. I hope to see many of you in Richmond tomorrow.Please stay tuned there as I’ll be blogging Bob’s election day, and election night.

If anyone has any scoop on anything happening across the Commonwealth on other races, shoot me an e-mail with details and I’ll try to post. Alternatively you can send an e-mail to vablogger (at) gmail.com as well. Thanks, and on to victory!

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Nov 02nd by Too Conservative

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If you haven’t had a chance to make it out to a campaign rally yet, it’s not too late! Check out the details below for your opportunity to see Bob McDonnell, Bill Bolling, and Ken Cuccinelli before Election Day: