For those who missed the big news of last week, the Virginia business community announced a series of policy objectives labelled GO Virginia. You can read through all of the lovely details regarding regional approaches to transportation and economic development, most of which aren’t entirely novel — but simply good ideas whose time just never quite seems to come.
A number of cheerleaders have surrounded the effort, including Virginia Speaker Bill Howell and the Northern Virginia Technology Council. To wit, GO Virginia outlines its plan in abstract:
GO Virginia supports a voluntary, incentive-based approach as the best way to encourage regional cooperation on private-sector growth. To fund state incentives, the coalition favors use of growth revenues, re-purposed dollars, and efficiency savings. State funding should also leverage private, local, and other investment. GO Virginia proposes NO new taxes, mandates, layers of government, or changes in local authority. Our focus is creating more opportunity for Virginians through private-sector growth in each region.
Big bold letters!
Of course, what would make GO Virginia even stronger? Why, proposing NO new taxes, mandates, layers of government, or changes in local authority — period — and making such requirements ironclad rather than a temporary position for Phase One, then allowing the emphasis on regionalization take over in Phase Two with additional taxing authority, additional mandates, additional layers of government, and surrendered local authority.
The Richmond Times-Dispatch editorial board takes a tone more on the side of caution than optimism:
The bigger question for the general public is whether Go Virginia will produce truly innovative approaches to growing the state’s economy, or whether it will end up looking like more corporate welfare by a different name. Creating apprenticeship programs to teach provisional employees what they need in a high-tech economy, for instance, would be a splendid way to close a looming skills gap. (By one estimate, the U.S. will soon have 5 million fewer workers with technical certificates than employers need.) But simply handing out grants labeled “workforce training” to favored companies would achieve little.
…but.
The fact of the matter is that regional approaches to economic development and transportation simply make sense, especially in Hampton Roads where the Port of Virginia and Norfolk are suffering dramatically from lack of regional co-operation.
Other parts of Virginia would do well to learn from Norfolk’s example over the last 50 years.
Nature has given Norfolk the only deepwater port on the eastern seaboard able to take the post-Panamax shipping boats; one of two to take the Panamax boats (Baltimore being the other port). Yet even though Norfolk and Charlotte were of similar size 50 years ago, Charlotte has exploded by a factor of 20 over the last five decades, expanding as a regional powerhouse while Norfolk languishes in comparison.
Tom Ferrell and John Luke in their op-ed for the RTD go through the opportunities for regional co-operation, and outline where the opportunities for crafting the future and allaying the fears of saddling government to big business can be done:
Virginians’ tax dollars support a lot of activities that are vital for business success, especially education and training. Many of these services are delivered by local governments, school divisions, colleges, universities and community colleges. But business enterprises do not arrange their affairs according to local government borders, school division lines or other political boundaries. Businesses typically provide jobs to qualified workers from throughout a region, serve customers across that region, use regional suppliers and vendors, and rely on regional transportation networks and other infrastructure.
. . .
To succeed in this effort, we do not need new mandates, taxes, layers of government, or changes in governmental structures or authority. We need to use what we already have more efficiently; we need to work together better; and we need to focus our efforts and investments on creating the conditions in which well-run businesses can grow and increase jobs. Our aim must be to expand business output and jobs across each region rather than reallocating market share or picking winners and losers.
Brilliantly stated. The fact is, the overlap in public services is eating taxpayer dollars, while the opportunity for co-operation gives us a one-time shot at rebooting the Virginia economy for the 21st century — to make sure that 2050 puts Virginia on the world stage as one of a handful of major wealth creators.
Other areas of regional co-operation? Promoting credits for post-secondary education to any Virginia high school graduate with a 3.0 GPA to one of our community colleges. Offering workforce development to allow for retraining and certification to give Virginia’s working class the weapons and education needed to compete in a 21st century workforce. Enhancing microfinance for Virginia’s new and expanding businesses to weld ideas and development to smart entrepreneurial capital that can train the next generation of business leaders to rise up and take advantage of all Virginia has to offer.
Regional enhancements to economic development planning, transportation funding, and infrastructure improvements such as broadband and water are immense opportunities that Virginia’s planning district commissions are in a perfect condition to facilitate. Clearly, there is so much more that can be accomplished in areas that would not raise taxes a dime, with incredible opportunities to lift average incomes and provide entrepreneurial independence to hundreds of thousands of families.
GO Virginia deserves a great deal of optimism. One almost has to wonder whether fiddling in the margins is the sort of bi-partisan effort that is truly needed at the end of the day. Policy leaders instinctively know otherwise, but GO Virginia might very well be that first step towards reorienting Virginia government towards the business of free enterprise.
