The realities of “now” require the passage of HB6055
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As the General Assembly reconvenes today, much chatter is going on across the blogs about 1st Congressional District GOP Chiar Tom Foley’s letter (which advances nothing, by the way) and how Republicans must now make a principled stand to block what has been called “the son of Frankenstein“.
While I would love to agree with my conservative blogger colleagues on this effort, the realities of “now” impede such a short-sighted and narrow view of our regional, which translate to commonwealth-wide, transportation needs.
Republicans had a chance this past General Assembly to make a principled stand on spending when Gov. Kaine was giving away the treasury to Pre-K to say, “no!” Instead, they screwed us all by passing the bill and failing to allocate the necessary funding for transportation — a truly vital government service for our national security, public safety and economy.
The time to draw a line in the sand was then, not now.
The only thing difference from the bill (HB3202) that passed and the bill that exists now (HB6055) is that it now complies with the Virginia constitution. There is no reason it shouldn’t be passed.
What we, as conservatives, should be angry about is not a bill that is proposed to meet the obligations of government, but the ones that unnecessarily expand it.
So we should ignore the efforts of Marshall, Cuccineelli, Frederick, Cole, and Gear to redirect current revenue get unnecessary spending rescinded?
I don’t think so, JR. The proper thing to do with mistakes is to fix them, not compound them.
Like the car tax spending?
The only proper thing to do is ensure that our transportation needs are met.
Have I ever not advocated for limited spending?
In fact, at Bolling’s first blogger conference, I was the one who asked the question about getting government spending under control while you remained silent.
Don’t lecture me.
Let’s talk about the realities of “now” –
The realities of “now” dictate that we jettison the old-style ways of the Byrd road system that we must comply with today. This system was put in place a quarter of a century BEFORE the now 50+ year old interstate system was built. It is not suited for the 21st century.
The realities of “now” dictate that we develop a new funding formula for transportation that is based more upon an area’s population, thus reflecting its actual need. HR/Tidewater and NoVA both get short shrift and nothing much will change until the formula changes.
The realities of “now” dictate that we firewall the transportation trust fund so that sticky fingers in the General Assembly or governor’s mansion cannot use funds that should be used to build and maintain roads for other purposes wholely unrelated to transportation.
These are but some of the realities of “now,” none of which HB 6055 addresses.
IRT:
“The only thing difference from the bill (HB3202) that passed and the bill that exists now (HB6055) is that it now complies with the Virginia constitution. There is no reason it shouldn’t be passed.”
Huh?
HB 3202 never should have passed - it was a disaster!
To simply repeat the same mistake with HB 6055 is dumber than making it the first time.
This time the General Assembly has even less of an excuse to blame their failure to bring us any meaningful solutions.
Face the reality here - for Tidewater, the 6 MPO projects don’t offer those of us that live here - and drive on our highway system, any meaningful reduction in the percentage of severely congested lane miles.
Translation?
We spend billions of dollars taken out of our local economy to build the state-owned port more highway capacity for the NEW trucks the port wants to dump on our highways.
On the good news side, HB 6055 does channel 30% of the new port profits into the regional fund for our region’s transportation. I like that. However, the amount is capped at a maximum of $250M a year.
On the other good news side, the following are things I like about HB 6055 better than HB 3202:
* No more HRTA! (yeah) - but instead the MPO is all-powerful. (Boo!)
* The 5% tax on car repairs is gone!
* The Grantors tax is gone for Tidewater (yeah!) - but appears to remain for NORVA!
* The funds can be spent on ANYTHING the MPO wants - it is not limited to the 6 MPO projects and the HRBT expansion.
All HB 6055 requires is that PPTAs are solicited for the 7 projects.
Based upon state and port data, this year would have generated a 73 million dollar shift of money in the state budget. Yeah, that data is probably fantasy, but I had to start somewhere. What concerns me is what happens when the increase in TEUs goes into a negative situation. Like during a recession. If the same TEU number used above was a loss of TEUs, the debt servicing would be short 73 million that year. This shortage would have to be made up from additional funds from the state budget, or from the other transportation revenue streams. I may have missed it, but I didn’t see a guaranteed minimum amount from the port side of the equation in this bill. That’s a big hole to fill from the local economy.
Bonding agencies are going to look at this in their risk review, and in all probability charge a higher interest to make up for it. The days of simply selling revenue obligation bonds on the market without a care in the world is over. Too many investors have been bit hard on these types of deals.
And the way this bill is written, responsibility for default falls on the state, impacting their credit rating. If the GA tries to push this obligation down to the local level, I see more legal challenges on the horizon starting with constitutionally mandated voter approval. What may be a revenue bond at the state level potentially crosses the line when only certain state citizens are obligated in case the projects go bust.
Two huge problems with Reid’s arguments.
First, the Ax the Tax Coalition in 2002 ran on a position of “support the projects but oppose the funding mechanism”. Therefore, you can’t claim the referendum loss was a rejection of the projects.
Second, Reid and his cohorts have yet to offer an alternate list of projects. For all their complaining about the MPO list, they have nothing to offer.
Eeeek!
No tax increases period. Bob Marshall is right on target. There are so many possible programs and wasteful spending initiatives that could be cut. When limited government proponents stop fighting for what’s right and begin to compromise on the “something is better than nothing” platform, the state shifts to the middle and eventually to the left. It is what has happened to Virginia over the past few years and it is what has happened to the U.S. over the past eight.