Message of the Washington Post and Creigh Deeds
Save yourself 13 paragraphs. Here is the message of the Washington Post in their endorsement.
Creigh Deeds raised taxes before and he’ll do it again.
Honestly, that’s why they endorse him. Since my self-imposed policy of not linking to liberal commie rags of claptrap, you’ll have to look it up on your own. Google “supports tax-increasing Democrats” and you’ll probably find the Washington Post.
So, anyone who thinks tax increases are just what we need right now, the Washington Post has told you who’ll do that for ya.
Isn’t it funny how liberals who whine about the need for “diversity” can’t find a single conservative to write for an editorial board in 99% of the newspapers in this country?
Category: Campaigns and Elections
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Well, if Bearing Drift’s poll about Deed’s necessary focus going into election day is accurate, then the Washington Post poll is pretty good for Deeds.
Brian, it seems that everyone looking at the reality of transportation knows that we can afford to do anything without raising some sort of capital. No one “likes” taxes for the sake of taxes, but taxes are used to pay for public services and projects, and transportation is a doozy. We’re at the point of abandoning roads and bridges throughout the commonwealth for lack of funds. There hasn’t been any boost in funding for transportation in Virginia since 1986. I think McDonnell is totally off base when he rules out any increase in funding without an increase in taxes. That’s not the reality in which we exist, and won’t get us anywhere far on transportation, and likely would harm other public services.
Deeds tripped up a few weeks back in explaining his plan. That’s unfortunate, but it doesn’t make him wrong. With transportation being a top priority for so many, especially in the urban corridor, it should have been the focus of the campaign: an increase in taxes as all. I’m honest about this when I speak to people on the phone and on their doorstep, and the campaign should have been strong with this message throughout.
Joel, feel free to write government a giant check. Don’t force me to.
Have you volunteered to give government more of your own money? Did you get a tax refund? If so, why? You should’ve sent that check right back to government.
Liberals love spending other people’s money. I see it when rich millionaires in Hollywood tell America we need to vote Democrat, and then sit on their millions and tell everyone else to pay those pesky taxes.
A mere 5 years ago, Virginia raised taxes massively, and Democrats need more already for another “crisis.” Why would people fall for the latest crisis when the last tax increase was frittered away so easily and more tax increases are claimed to be needed.
Everyone needs to contribute, Brian. The problem is too massive. Having to pay for anything is not at the top of anyones love list, but raising revenue for transportation is a must. In our hyper-mobile society, everyone wants to go where they want, when they want, as often as they want, and pay little for it. I’m sorry, it doesn’t work that way. We can’t fund necessary projects with only 6% of the revenue needed. We can’t even afford to maintain the transportation system we have. Revenue needs to be raised, and yes, I am willing to pay more to get it done. You should be too.
See, I’m different from you. I don’t get my paycheck from government.
My first response to the people in government constantly telling me they need more of my money is not to gleefully hand it over. You obviously haven’t volunteered any. You took your tax refund check and deposited it in your own account.
I contribute a heck of a lot, thank you. All taxpayers do. I pay a higher percentage of my income than my parents did back when they built ALL these highways in the first place.
And I’m supposed to pay more? No. Government needs to learn how to cut some of their spending that’s less important to them than roads.
Key Point – If every penny of government spending is too important to cut in order to fund roads, then transportation by definition isn’t that high of a priority for them.
We already pay plenty in taxes. It’s just that some people have tricked us into thinking our taxes shouldn’t be used to build roads, so we need OTHER taxes. That’s what they mean when they scream about not taking “general fund” money for roads.
Roads are part of the core services of government. So roads SHOULD be funded by my taxes, paid into the “general fund”. We can get the money by cutting general fund programs that have nothing to do with the core of government, like funding pre-kindergarten for everybody.
We raised taxes twice in the last 5 years, while we had a “transportation” problem, but NEITHER time was the tax increase FOR transportation. Instead, we’ve doubled the cost of our government, WITHOUT funding transportation. Instead, we’ve spent the money on wasteful programs.
Of course, we also spent our road money on wasteful programs, building highways where there are no cars, building multi-million-dollar “rest stops” that you could hold conventions in, spending millions planting flowers in the medians.
I’m ready to start over. ZERO OUT the budget, and vote on each thing you want to fund. Let’s see how many people really want their tax dollars spent on all the wasteful programs that have vocal but tiny minority constituencies.
BTW, no surprise about the WP endorsement. They admitted months ago that McDonnell was a decent, hardworking middle-of-the-road guy, but then Deeds imploded, so they had to re-write history.
So the guy with a transportation PLAN is dismissed because they don’t like his plan. And the guy with NO transportation plan, but with plans to raise taxes, gets the nod, because we all know that if we just raised taxes, the roads would just fix themselves.
As I’ve said before, Deeds doesn’t have a transportation plan, he has a TABLE plan — he’s going to get everybody around a table, and hope that takes the people off the roads and gets them in a room where Deeds can steal all the money out of their pockets.
While I have often posted about national support from the trucking industry towards favoring a fuel tax as being the preferred method of raising additional revenue for transportation I was always uncertain about how Virginia’s truckers felt. Well now I know and it appears Virginia’s truckers fall in line with national sentiment (not just them commie truckers that come from California).
I am going to lift this quote from a piece that appeared on the right of center Richmond Times:
“Our industry’s position is that the diesel tax is the best and most efficient way of collecting highway-user dollars from us,” said Dale Bennett, executive vice president of the Virginia Trucking Association, which has 550 member companies.
Now, is Bob McDonnell going to be pro-business? When it comes to surface transportation funding is he going to listen to the experts in the business? Or is he going to be outright hostile to the trucking industry?
Even if McDonnell is elected Virginia’s trucking industry, along with generous help from the national industry, is going to be opposing much of what McDonnell proposes. We’ll oppose him when the vote comes up in the legislature and even if he wins the votes, we’ll see him in court.
I would invite everyone to actually go read the Washington Post endorsement. It weighs heavily on what we need to do to fix the transportation mess and just who the best candidate is to fix it.
I say 10-4 in agreement with the Washington Post.
This about says it all regarding the WaPO:
“… Mr. McDonnell’s tenure as attorney general, by most accounts, has been professional and not overtly ideological.”
Washington Post Editorial June 11, 2009
From Deeds endorsement:
“Mr. McDonnell has staked out the intolerant terrain on his party’s right wing, fighting a culture war that seized his imagination as a law student in the Reagan era.”
Go figure.
CNU just released polling of Virginians from last week.
Raise taxes for transportation : 59% NO – 29% yes
Raise Gas tax 69% NO – 25% yes
So much for the Washington Post’s pulse of the electorate.
I’ll all for cutting government expense and finding efficiency. As someone who receives my “paycheck from government”, I look to cut costs as much as possible, and I can show that I’ve saved my office thousands of dollars by finding more efficient, environmentally friendly, ways of doing things.
I’m interested. Where do you propose to cut funding to? Yes, under Mark Warner, the tax code was reformed to the tune of a $1.5 billion increase in taxes, which seems to have strengthened our economic status as a state and invested in education. This investment has shown results. Would you turn back the tax reforms of Warner, weakening Virginia’s ability to function and reducing opportunity for the students of the commonwealth?
By the way, the increase in tax revenue from Warner’s reforms are a drop in the bucket of what’s needed for transportation. While I agree that funding solution can not be solved through taxes, as this would mean Virginians would need to pay over ten times in taxes marked for transportation than they do right now, tax revenue for transportation does need to be raised in order for us to even consider public private partnerships or any other funding proposal.
And Brian, just because I get my “paycheck from government”, doesn’t mean I don’t pay taxes as well.
Joel
We pay enough taxes already. Have you looked at your power bill? Your cell phone bill? We pay Local, State and Federal taxes. We pay taxes when we go out to eat, when we shop, etc. Yes, it does take money to pay for roads, emergency services etc. But, it’s pretty easy to keep voting for tax increases, when your a lib. Libs are pretty good at not paying taxes, just look at Charlie Rangal, and any of the many libs that were denied a Cabinet position in the obama administration for not paying taxes. So, it’s no surprise to see the COMPOST endorse higher taxes.
I’ve said it a million times before and I’ll say it a million more times.. We need to make a driving test harder, we all forget driving is a privilege not a RIGHT. Will additional lanes make people driver better? Will it make them use their signals, not pace the car next to them, so that they are blocking the lanes not allowing people to pass? Will it cause people not to rubber neck because their is an accident in the lanes going the opposite direction? Will it make people not drive slow in the left lane and not get out of the lane when there is a line of traffic behind them? Of course not. Also, thanks to the libs in Arlington, Route 66 inside the beltway can’t be expanded. So, no amount of extra money from tax increases is going to fix that issue.
Hot lanes are already being built on 495, how many more lanes can be added to after that to 495? Of course the libs complained about the HOT lanes because trees were cut down along the beltway to make room for the hot lanes. How many more lanes can be added to Routes 29 and 50?
I believe we have reached are limits on lanes and new roads here in NOVA, due to lack of space and libs not wanting to expand where we do have room.
I’ll also point out that Maryland has just as bad if not worse traffic, yet, because MD is run by the libs, you don’t see the same complaints about low taxes. Why is that? We also need to get rid of illegals, there a few hundred thousand illegals in this area, many of them drive daily. Get rid of them, and that frees up a lot of road space.
I could not care less who the compost endorses, nor is this news – we have known this was coming since the thesis stories (I used the plural on purpose) broke, over and over and over again that is. I want to see where the rest of the VA papers tilt in their endorsements.
Who gives a rat’s ass who any othese newspapers endorse. Their opinion is no more enlightened than JR’s or Brian’s or anyone else’s. I am shocked that candidates even agree to sit through these insane editorial board intervierws under the pretense that there is an open, fair process. All these editors have their political leanings. When the candidates go to these idiotic and demeaning meetings with these loser editors it lends credibility to the eventual endorsement. The notion that the editors know the state, the districts, the issues or the legislative or government process better than the candidates, especially the incumbents is laughable. I say enough is enough. Stop the madness. Quit going to editorial board meetings. Stop giving them the rope to hang you with.
i don’t want to pay anymore taxes. i have a child in college. a state college. but more taxes would sure hurt.
Virginia’s transportation problem is caused by local governments approving too much real estate development that crushes the infrastructure, especially roads and transit. Also, local governments fail to obtain sufficient cash or in-kind proffers from development. The result is traffic H**L and a constant cry for higher and higher taxes.
For example, in order to increase growth at Tysons Corner by only 15 million square feet from 45 million today to 60 million, the Dulles Toll Road must be expanded from eight lanes to fifteen lanes. That is insane. But if we need this expansion, make those landowners who are getting increased density pay for the additional road miles.
[...] Drift’s Brian Kirwin hit the nail on the head – the Washington Post’s surprising (yeah, right!) endorsement of Democrat Creigh Deeds is [...]