Richmond’s response to the unconstitutionality of having transportation authorities brings us back to a 2002 debate.
Why flood money into the usual transportation system if the General Assembly can raid the money? The Senate Democrats are even raiding the lottery money, and that DOES have a constitutional amendment protecting it.
The only way to keep transportation authorities constitutionally alive is to have the General Assembly (or every local government) enact the taxes. If the General Assembly enacts the taxes and sends the money to a special fund, we’re right back to the 2002 referendum where an overwhelming majority of folks said “no” and polls showed it was because they didn’t trust Richmond to keep their hands off the money.
Of course, the same folks trust an authority even less, so they wanted a constitutional amendment to protect the money in the “transportation fund.” Sure, the “law” says it can’t be used for other purposes, but the only thing it takes to change that is another law, and when budgets are tight, as we see today, Richmond plays three card monty like a pro.
Kaine talked the talked on protecting transportation revenue, but submitted a budget that diverted transportation revenue without nary a blush. Bacon’s Rebellion recently called him on his memory loss with regards to it.
Here’s the odd part. HB3202 was born out of the failure of the transportation referendum to keep the money out of Richmond’s hands, keep the debt off Richmond’s books and make a constitutional amendment to protect the fund not so needed.
With the Senate push to make the funds state revenues again, they shine a giant light on the initial problem they haven’t solved….protecting transportation funds from Richmond budget writers.
