It’s pretty simple. If you make it cheaper to hire people, employers will hire more of them. More people working means more income tax revenue. More revenue means [more to spend/more opportunity to cut taxes - take your pick], and the world is fine.
Take a look at this chart, though, and you’ll see the staggering increase in the percentage of federal revenue from payroll taxes, which, as described above, makes it more difficult for employers to expand their employee base. You’ll see that, as a percentage of overall revenue, payroll taxes have gone through the roof over the past 50 years (click on the picture for more details).
Revised mandatory pre-abortion ultrasound bill passes the Virginia Senate. Loudoun Senators who voted for it can’t be found, those that voted against it speak out in that LTM article. Your abortion-obsessed state legislature at work, folks! How many jobs might this create? Here’s a helpful advertisement to help some of you enter an expanding and exciting field that will certainly have great “opportunities for growth” as a result of this brilliant lawmaking. Someone sent this image to me this morning that came to them in a spam email. What great timing.
Nationally syndicated radio talk show host Mark Levin absolutely lays into Superintendent Hatrick and his proposed 11% budget increase. YouTube clip below, and link to LCRC Facebook page here discussing it which includes interesting points raised by School Board member Jill Turgeon and the three jobs her teacher-husband holds.
In a nutshell, Levin commends the five members of the board who have stood up to Hatrick and rails on a Lo Co teacher whining about a 3% pay increase.
Why oh why must every official press release from our state Office of the Attorney General contain links for “More about Attorney General Cuccinelli” and “Photos of the attorney general” (shouldn’t they at least be consistent in their capitalization?)??? And check out how huge his name is on the top of the website, absolutely dwarfing “Attorney General of Virginia”. That office isn’t the most important thing to highlight, that is KEN CUCCINELLI!
Looks like The Cooch and Salahi share the love for the limelight and self promotion. Maybe Tareq traded some PR tips and contacts for a lenient settlement!
Oh, the latest hypocrisy of those social ” conservatives.” On the one hand, they argue that medically unnecessary vaginal probes are not unduly invasive, and, on the other, object to mandatory vaccinations against a virus that killed 4,000 women last year. Thank goodness reason was again able to sneak back into the General Assembly today, and the bill to repeal the HPV vaccine requirement was tabled.
Indeed, it’s the Democrats who have repeatedly saved Republicans from completely self-destructing over social issues this session. If it hadn’t been for them, and a few “turncoat” Republicans, we’d have medically unnecessary vaginal ultrasounds and pregnant women (who don’t even know they’re pregnant) qualifying for the carpool lane, to name just a few. In other words, we’d be an even bigger laughing stock. So, on behalf of the rest of the Republican party and its candidates who suffer as a result of such antics, thank you, Virginia Democrats, for keeping the GA Republicans from completely screwing us over.
So many questions. Maybe they can provide an answer at tonight’s LCRC meeting.
UPDATE: OMG, I’ve been told that those uniforms are “a close imitation of the uniforms of the US Army Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps from Fort Myer”. Yep, that’s what most people will think of when they see redcoated soldiers superimposed over the Constitution, not British Revolutionary War soldiers!
UPDATE II: As discovered by Lloyd and verified by others, the young gents depicted in that image are re-enactors of British Drummer Boys at the British surrender at Yorktown at the end of the Revolutionary War. So I was right after all. Why is the LCRC showing British Drummer Boys in their header image???
Geary Higgins is obviously the best of the two western Loudoun supervisors. While Janet Clarke is busy trying to placate her supporters who don’t want it and/or want the land the county bought for it by killing it, then trying to steer the county towards her supporters’ unleased office space for rent, Geary Higgins takes a pragmatic look at it and decides the best thing is to move forward. Just like Mike Chapman did after looking at all the facts and the significant investment in time and money already spent. Only Janet’s BFF on the BOS Eugene Delgaudio would go along with her scheme. Good for Geary, I’m glad to see he isn’t under the spell of the Pville Mafia.
here’s an excerpt from Higgins’ recent constituent newsletter describing his reasoning. Please note, there were no advertisements for any Higgins aides’ side businesses as far as I can tell in this newsletter. Another welcome distinction between the two western Loudoun supervisors.
Over the past few weeks, people inside and outside of our district have shared their concerns with me about the Western Loudoun Substation project. I fully understand and agree with many of the issues relating to this project. Unfortunately, as the details of the project were revealed to the board, it became evident that significant financial resources already committed to the project, made it fiscally irresponsible to simply walk away. If there was a way to get out of the project without incurring additional loss and financial damage, then I would fully support that option. The problem is that we have already spent close to $2,000,000, the bonds have been issued, and these bonds which cannot be spent on another project or paid off for ten years are costing us interest, we are told, in the amount of $400,000 per year. Here is my take on the situation: right now we are roughly $2 million into a now $5.7 million project (down from $8.3 million) with $400k annual interest cost, so for 2012 we will spend $2.4 million of a $5.7 million project or 42%. We will add $400k to that for the next 9 years ($3.6 million more in interest). If we just walk away, all that money is lost (roughly $6 million) on a situation where everyone agrees that something needs to be done. If we do an interim fix now, that just adds more expense to the lost money until we find a permanent solution. While this might be cheaper in the short run, when we look for a permanent solution in the future we will have to start from the beginning, it will be more expensive and all that money will be lost. I do not view that as being a fiscally prudent option at this point unless different information becomes available. Let me be clear, if we could start over from scratch on this project, I would do something different. However, we must deal with the consequences of actions made by the previous board. Cutting our expenses by 33% and proceeding with the project seems to me to be the best, least expensive option at this point.
Good grief, it looks like Loudoun County Public Schools chief Edgar Hatrick has his PR people working overtime to convince the Board of Supervisors to raise our property taxes to $1.29, with a new catch phrase being uttered by many of the tax raisers – “I’m fine with $1.29″. Well, I can tell without a shred of doubt that I am NOT fine with it, nor are the majority of voters out there, that was proven by our recent election results. Keep cutting, folks, LCPS is still nowhere near being “dismantled” (Hatrick’s favorite word of doom).
I simply have had enough of the uninformed whining about the tolls on the Dulles Greenway and the misguided attempts to artificially lower them.
Here’s the deal. The Greenway (not the Dulles Toll Road) is privately owned. It was built on private land with private money. No land was condemned by the state to build it, and, in fact, the Greenway pays more than $3 million per year in property taxes to Loudoun County. (The Greenway owners, by the way, are doing a crappy PR job — there’s some really good info on their site that they need to get out).
As a private entity, and even considering the rather unusual structure by which the owners are repaid and the road turned over to the state, the owners have every reason to maximize revenue. The toll is one factor of that revenue, but the number of paying customers is the other. Thus, to maximize revenue, the owners must price the road according to what the market will bear. If it’s too high, no one will use it and they’ll lose money. Simple free enterprise economics. The relatively high fee is more likely a function of the market (that is, the disastrous state of transportation in northern Virginia) than the greed of the owners. The owners can charge that rate because they can, and they can because the alternatives stink.
If you don’t like the toll, don’t pay it and suck up the longer commute. Just don’t give me the mindless populist drivel we hear every election season, particularly from supposedly free market Republicans, that localities need to control the rates or that the rates should just be . . . lower. We need to encourage creative solutions to our traffic problems, and discouraging future attempts at private roads certainly isn’t helping matters. Let the free market work, and we’ll all be better off in the long run.
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