Virginian-Pilot: Kaine “stumbling parade of failures”
By Brian Kirwin | Sunday, January 3rd, 2010 | PolicyI’ve disagreed with editorial writers before, but all partisan bickering aside, ya gotta admit when they call it right, and boy do they call it right with regards to Gov. Tim Kaine.
And they remind me why I think a two-term Governor would help.
“He was too combative with Republicans and too accommodating with recalcitrant Democrats. He favored surprise attacks over consensus building. He allowed himself to be sucked into Richmond’s tired old blame game, wasting energy on finger-pointing and pointless legislative maneuvers. (Pilot)”
It sure wasn’t how he campaigned, and that’s been the big problem with one-and-done Governors in Virginia. They can U-turn after election day and do whatever they want no matter how unpopular, and there’s no real reason for them to care what voters think. They won’t face them again.
Kaine on the campaign trail said no new taxes without a Constitutional Amendment to protect transportation funds from raids. He got elected, and pushed gas tax increases and ditched his promises. He went on a “listening tour” after his campaign was over and suddenly discovered transportation taxes were needed.
Problem was he needed the votes of legislators who DO have to face voters again, and they didn’t seem thrilled at the prospect of carrying Kaine’s tax water and facing the voters’ wrath alone. I wonder how Governors would act in office knowing that they’d face voters again.
The Virginian-Pilot frustratingly thinks legislators should raise taxes for voters’ own good despite their opinions to the contrary. Its blatant endorsements for legislators committed to doing so has led to some embarrassing results and has made a paper previously known for pragmatism now a grumpy signwaver for a left-wing agenda at precisely the time when the pendulum is swinging the other way.
Some of the failings they cite in Governor Kaine are true of the Pilot’s own board. No effort has been made to include any editorial writers even remotely called conservative or even center-right moderate. Individual columns of editorial writers reveal partisan leanings quite clearly.
If Kaine has been “too combative with Republicans” and failed at “consensus building,” the Pilot should opine if they’ve been guilty of the same thing.
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The right wants to jeer him. The left wants to censor him. Moderates usually want both. Brian Kirwin is a political consultant and public relations strategist in Virginia Beach with a lightning-rod flair. Brian also serves on the VB Arts & Humanities Commission and frequently appears on Hampton Roads theatrical stages, if only to prove that all actors aren’t liberals. Kirwin’s columns stir up debate and hit the political scene with no punches pulled.
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35 Responses to "Virginian-Pilot: Kaine “stumbling parade of failures”"
I am not a fan of Tim Kaine. But I am waiting with baited breath to see just how McDonnell is going to solve all of our problems without any tax increases.
No new taxes! OK, where are the cuts going to come from?
Large portions of the no new taxes crowd are in favor of smaller government. Let’s see just how much government shrinks under the McDonnell administration. Let us see if McDonnell can provide to you what you asked for.
Brian, excellent points. The ed board at the Pilot is guilty of the same charges they level at Kaine. Unfortunately there is no term limit for editorial board writers and they never face the voters. However, the lack of subscribers directly correlates to the lack of respect most households have for the Pilot. The Pilot has offended so many well-meaning people with their liberal bias that they just stopped buying the newspaper. Why would I pay for a product that offends my values and assaults my opinions almost every single day?
As governor, Kaines has been the biggest failure in modern times. Gilmore accomplished much more as governor. The fiscal failures during his administration were not of his making, but rather the making of Chichester and Potts and Stolle and their ilk.
if we didn’t make pot illegal we not only would save on ineffective anti-drug resources but also save a ton of money on prisons.
making VA more business friendly would bring more employment in turn increasing the tax base without raising taxes
privatizing the ABC stores as McDonnell campaigned on would also inject a nice one-time amount of cash.
Amit:
Interesting, McDonnell should solve the budget problem by making pot legal and taxing it. I am sure that will go over well with Virginia voters.
Let’s get back to reality and avoid the marijuana influenced haze. Where are the cuts going to come from? We need to make government smaller. Which portions of smaller government will the majority of voters accept?
Simple, abolish the state income tax for starters. It is too easy for the politicians to spend it. Many growing and healthy states do not use one and they are prospering. Also, the income tax is unfair due to its progressive nature. If you have such a tax it should be flat where ALL people pay the same rate. That way the rich pay more but everyone pays the same fair percentage. No one should pay $0. (tell that to the Feds as well).
Next, determine how much revenue is to be collected other taxes that the people will willingly fund. Then build your budget and set your priorities. Just like every American household should. We don’t decide what we want to spend then try to figure out where the money comes from, we figure the money source first then plan the expenditures based on our income to live within our means.
Dry Viking:
We’re not talking about overhauling the tax system. We’re only talking about where the cuts must be made. Overhauling the tax system is another debate for another day.
Without tax increases, government needs to be made smaller. Where do we start?
You fellas in favor of smaller government have the perfect opportunity. You elected a “no new taxes” governor and are faced with a decreasing budget due to the economy. Perfect recipe for smaller government. So just where is government now going to get smaller?
Please those of you who are in favor of smaller government do not now give in to increased fees to continue to fund big government. The goal here is small government. Coming up with non-traditional new sources of revenue is not an option. Keep your goal in mind.
LD, the prisons in VA cost the taxpayer roughly $1 billion per year while the Police only $200 million. while the GOP likes to be “tough on crime” with long prison sentences for everything, its simply not practical to do so from a budget perspective or even necessary for petty crimes. Especially when rookie prisoners come out more dangerous than they came in. So while marijuana may not become legal, it doesn’t make sense to prosecute it the way we do.
that being said, Department of Medical Assistance Services spends $3 billion per year and has to be looked at seriously. Allowing seniors to stay in assisted living homes versus nursing homes would not only save money but also increase the quality of life for many seniors. Other smart cuts/adjustments need to be made in this area.
and I’m pretty sure the $5 billion spent every year on public education can be optimized. my father is a professor at a public university and is always complaining about the colossal waste.
btw, a pretty good site is:
http://dpb.virginia.gov/budget/buddoc10/index.cfm
OK, Amit proposes a cost savings. By legalizing everything under the sun, we can come up with a savings of about one billion per year. No reason to keep confining criminals in prison if we just make what they were thrown into prison for legal.
What the heck, if everything is going to be legal we can save the additional 200 million and just eliminate the entire police force.
Amit proposes a big cost savings. Next? We still have a long way to go to balance the budget.
Don’t get me started on college education costs. It’s the only industry that continues to fund and price itself on pre-internet models of productivity and get rewarded for the effort.
Why taxpayers are still paying to construct college buildings in the internet age is beyond me.
LD, simple equation for you:
limited govt = fewer regulations = more civil liberties = smaller govt budget = less taxes = increased growth = more jobs = higher income = more personal responsibility = increased charitable giving
perhaps you believe we can regulate moral behavior. I do not and in fact think it is counter-productive. a police force is required when one person violates another’s private property but is required less when fewer citizens are poor
Brian,
Now that I am just about through putting my kids through college, I am not in favor of now increasing my taxes to lower tuition. Where were the low tuition rates when I was asked to pay?
But I still think a bricks and mortar college education is better then what you can get through the internet. Perhaps I am wrong on this, but I think there is still some benefit from expecting the student to show up on time for class instead of just logging on whenever it just well suits them.
David, if actual learning is less important then showing up on time, is that education worth what you paid?
Brian,
I am only worried about the real appearance. The guy or gal who actually showed up to take the test will be evaluated. Via the internet, who knows who actually provided the answers?
But we’re getting off track. We’re looking for real cost savings. Taxes will not be raised and somehow we must come up with ways to reduce the budget!
It’s amazing. I can buy and sell stocks online, transfer significant amounts of money. I can download books onto a 5inch screen in my pocket.
But David demands that I must sit in a classroom in a taxpayer-paid building in order to take a test.
As if colleges are test-taking worlds, since most grades are on essays, and who knows who wrote them, David?
Don’t ask for ways to cut government spending, and then whine by clinging to yesteryear because you don’t want to change.
Brian,
An individual who can not figure out how to get a fork to his mouth at the dinner table could get a doctorate under your scenario. The only thing he would need is for a very bright parent looking over his shoulder while he was on the keyboard to correct his mistakes.
Real cost savings? What do state and local governments spend more on than education?
Distance learning for colleges should’ve lowered the cost of education. It hasn’t. Why? It makes no sense. Instead of having 40 students in a class, a college can have 4,000 students in a class. They don’t. Instead these collegiate monopolies drive kids into debt promising the moon and then the graduates are shocked that people aren’t lining up to hire people with degrees in Philosophy, Women’s Studies, Sanskrit and the sociological habits of third world nations.
I’m more ticked off at what some of these colleges charge for their degrees than I was at people pushing subprime mortgages. I wish colleges were required to publish statistics on the percentage of how many of their graduates get jobs in their majors.
We still have a K-12 model of education that existed only because of the industrial revolution. I’ve agreed with reengineering that for almost two decades.
High School Freshmen who can graduate a year earlier should get half the cost of their senior year in a scholarship to the college of their choice. Taxpayers save the rest. And any teacher that has “movie day” just because the SOLs are over should get repeated kicks in the posteriors in public.
Change requires change.
David, I’ve met people with doctorates. I doubt they could handle a fork.
I agree with Brian on the brick and mortar vs internet argument relative to public institutions and liberal arts, business, law or political curriculums. However for science and engineering, there are laboratory requirements which are arguments in favor of a physical location, not a virtual one.
On-line simulations have been tried for electrical, mechanical, civil engineering courses as well as physics, chemistry and biological sciences, and they seem to work at the introductory levels. However, as students progress through their course of study, hands-on touch, taste, feel, hear and smell experiences are necessary to condition science and engineering students for their chosen fields. I don’t want Civil Engineers who never had a structural mechanics hands-on lab designing a Light Rail system, or Environmental Scientists who haven’t been in an Organic Chemistry lab, developing Environmental Impact Statements.
To offset or reduce expenses, maybe some of these labs could be outsourced to NASA or other government labs, or even to commercial businesses that have the resources. Maybe some requirements could be outsourced to private schools. And of course there is the old voucher argument and other ideas that can reduce the physical and cost footprint of public education.
Without getting into the other merits of the current college system, one problem with the on-line only approach is that it is not appropriate for many majors. How do I study the sciences from home without benefit of the laboratory equipment in a brick and mortar college? Hey, Mom! Can I set up a chem lab in the basement? We’re going to need to buy $1000′s in equipment and plumb in some propane for the Bunson Burners…
How do I study the performing arts? Are we just going to make individual YouTube videos and edit them together instead of performing on a stage? What about visual arts? Do I send my work through Fed Ex (better mark “fragile”) and how is an instructor supposed to view my technique and correct it if they cannot see me working? Do I want my future nurse to do their training and dissection work on a virtual basis? If so, the first time they insert a catheter in real life, I hope YOU are the lucky patient. Engineering? Same problem. A huge number of majors demand in person, on campus learning.
And none of this begins to address the leadership skills and life skills many kids develop only by going away to school–especially since we don’t have a draft any more. College where the only classroom options are mom’s basement, misses a lot of what college is about and limits what colleges can do. Under that system, our flagging efforts in science and math would flag even more.
Yawn.
If Bill Gates listened to you, he’d be broke.
Oh, I don’t know about that. I doubt I could have screwed up Vista any more than he did…
Calm down everyone. Why not let the market decide which types of classes should best require the physical presence of the student body?
Based on the arguments above, courses in fundamental core liberal arts cirriculum have the highest potential and widest market for an on-line venue. However, as also stated above, certain specific or advanced cirricula are best served from, at minimum, interaction with an expert and peers via interactive technology (which is on the horizon with regard to widespread availability), to at maximum, physical hands-on demonstrations of technique (nursing and medicine) and laboratory work (biological, environmental and physical sciences.)
Y’all seem to be making this an all or nothing debate with regards to reducing the high cost of education. Let’s be open to new solutions, but recoginize that there are still applications where traditional methods work best. Did you learn to read using phonics or the “look-say” method?
Brick and Mortar schools provide important resources.
1)Unless you go away to school, you never would have escaped your parents unless you got a real job.
2)A College campus is a good place to find marijuana and other drugs.
3)Far harder than getting pot, but if you nag the older students enough, they’ll buy you beer.
4)Sex is more convenient when you don’t have to worry about enraged parents messing up a good thing.
5)Everyone gets to laugh at the STDs that campus slut just gave her real boyfriend
6)One week of eating the crap from the University dining facility and you swiftly learn to appreciate Mom’s cooking.
7)There is no reasonable hour. Sleep usually occurs when you pass out.
8)As your English professor tells the class that the FBI is horrible and evil, you learn that you can indeed ignore the moral judgements of adults other than just your parents.
9)You get to have guys like Chuck Robb come speak to you. Years later you hear stories about cocaine parties and extra-marital affairs.
10) You learn that the rule of law is meaningless if you know how to get around it. Everyone pretty much does what they want anyway. Prohibition is definitely a joke.
As to No. 10, we knew that coming into Law School and then in the second year, started learning the dirty little secrets of how to work the system. Those of us who graduated are now in politics or are the robber barons of business.
Don’t forget the IRS will open their e-filing system to individuals wanting to file 2009 income tax returns on Friday, January 15th. If you have your necessary tax documents by then, you can get an early jump on filing your taxes.
I kind of like SicSemperTyrannus’s solution: “Why not let the market decide…”? Let the employers determine whether a diploma received via the internet is as valued as one obtained via traditional means.
I’m just wondering how a Harvard diploma is going to maintain its value once they start issuing diplomas to people who have never set a foot in Massachusetts.
If I owned a law firm, “having never set foot in Massachusetts” on a resume would vault it to the top of the list!
BK: Then you’d be running a pretty bad law firm.
At least it wouldn’t be corrupt.
Norfolk State University “The investigation found that the school had a “significant number” of nonqualified applicants who were processed for admission or were accepted for enrollment the past three years.”
Nice! All they cared about was that they showed up for class.
http://hamptonroads.com/2010/01/meyers-will-resign-president-norfolk-state-university
OK, we have now had a couple suggestions on how to save tax money.
We have heard the suggestions that we should make marijuana legal and how we should eliminate brick and mortar universities. Not sure how acceptable these cost saving measures will be with the voters, however they are suggestions.
Next?
LD,
For the purpose of this budget, yes unless taxes are being raised signifigant cuts are going to have to be made to core services which means education, healthcare and public safety. But even this isnt as bad as it seems… we have a budget deficit of about 5% of the budget. That 5 percent is less than one year of spending growth from about 2002-2007. It can be done it just means various things won’t have bells and whistles. So for instance is it really a crisis if for a few years the average classroom size is 22 students instead of 20?
But here’s some long term ideas to throw out there as possibilites that can signifigantly reduce spending:
1. enact a tiered copayment system in medicaid that incetivises non emergency care to be done in lower cost facilities (ie zero copay for clinic, $20 copay for emergency room)
2. Shift a portion of long term care spending from medicaid from institutionalized care to at home care
3. Prison reform… even if you dont want to go as far as legalizing or deciminalizing pot, move drug charges over to drug courts that emphasise rehabilitation rather than incarseration – this will drastically reduce the prison population and costs
4. change state employees pentions from defined benifit to defined contribution, just as most of the private sector has required.
5. Change public employee health plans to be higher deductable, lower premium plans… make meployees pay for part of their healthcare but give a higher part of compensation in cash… this incentives mroe wise healthcare spending and int he end lower total benifit costs
6. decentralize road control like most states so more local roads are manages by local jurstictions – we spend more per capital on local road maintenace than vritually any stste because ever time you want to change a stop sign you have to go to VDOT
7. Increase the benifit retirment age for state workers to 65 like most private industries
8. move government agencies into a just in time inventory system – and outsource various admin functions to lowest bid contracts
9. and if you really wanted to go out there you could reshuffle the entire grade school system with a voucher program that offeres a voucher less than what the state is currently paying per stsudent. Many students would leave the system with a partial subsidy and the remainder could be saved
10. restructure state university funding formula to be based at least in part on student perfromance rather than enrollment so for instance the college gets compensated in part based on graduation – this reeuces the amount on fluff students and maximizes expendatures based on quality – the formula can also be tweaked to disincentivise overhad growth cost which is where most of the expence growth has been in recent years
11. remove subsidies for everything from the ethanol blending credit to coal mining support to support for the arts to tourism welfare
12. Consolidate the states mental health system… we have 10 state run hospitals… though total admitted patiens have fallen in recent years… consolidate into fewer and sell off the assets of the ones not needes
13. institute a compeditive bidding priocess for all capital projects
14. merge a whole list of government agencies and commissions that overlap including everything from the Dept of Fire Programs into the Department of Emergency Management to consolidating the Department for the Blind and Vision Impaired with the Board for People with
Disabilities, and the Dept for Deaf and Hard of Hearing, to merging all the vairous financial regulatory agencies into one
15. outsource land and park managment servies
the list goes on and on… if people have the political will… there are ways to cut spending
EJ,
I think some of your proposals might have some merit, but each would need to offered up individually and subject to public debate.
I am going to offer up just a single example, you stated you were in favor of: “outsource various admin functions to lowest bid contracts”. We certainly have had some success with outsourcing IT infrastructure haven’t we? Sarcasm intended.
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