Ultimatum: Taxes or Authority

Last week I spoke with a lawmaker who said that I shouldn’t entirely believe that Speaker Howell’s proposal was going to be the only one coming from House Republicans. This legislator wouldn’t give me a hint as to what the alternative was going to be, saying that negotiations are on-going and very tenuous, but one had to figure some sort of regional revenue generating scheme was being hatched.

With Democrats calling for a statewide tax increase, the speaker saying it should be left up to localities to fund the authorities, and local tax groups calling for the elimination of the authorities (being buoyed by the “unconstitutional” ruling from the state supreme court), you had the sense that Hampton Roads’ House Republicans would be looking for some sort of middle ground.

What we got as a compromise proposal is the elimination of the authorities and a regional 1 percent sales tax increase, circa 2002.

Without going into any great detail on the merits or failures of the last proposal, there are several ways you can interpret this plan of action:

The “take your medicine and shut-up” approach: “You don’t want an unelected regional authority? Fine. You’ve tied are hands and you’re getting the sales tax”

The “aw-shucks, what else can we do?” approach: “Well, the authority should have never been created in the first place, but we still have to do something regionally for transportation.”

The “thank goodness for the supreme court, I wanted this all along” approach: “We told you so in 2002, but you were too stubborn as voters to agree to it. So, we tried another approach and it didn’t work…so here’s the sales tax…this time, we’ll just do it.”

The “this is in our best interests” approach: “How else can we raise the millions upon millions of dollars to make this a viable port and economic hub? We can’t rely on the cities — too much disparity. The rest of the state doesn’t want to help us out — the rural areas just aren’t seeing the greater benefit. So, we have to do this alone. Cutting spending and finding efficiencies will only go so far. If we really want to fund our wish-list, we have to pony-up the dollars. And the best way to do that is spread the pain to everyone in the region, including travelers and out-of-state residents.”

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About the author

JR Hoeft

Conservative to the core; liberal with his opinion! J.R. has been involved in politics for over a decade and has worked on several campaigns in Hampton Roads. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Chesapeake and the Central Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia. He is also the director of “Blogs United” in Virginia. E-mail J.R.. Follow J.R. on Twitter.