In the tumult of the holidays and all of the action in the Congress on “must pass now” legislation in the lame duck session, it was easy to miss a major announcement from the Governor on his transportation plan. Back in early December, the Governor announced he will propose spending an additional $4 billion on transportation and infrastructure over the next three years. The money will come from a variety of sources, including issuing state and federally backed bonds, as well as spending some of the $1.5 billion the Governor found stuffed in random couches over at VDOT headquarters earlier this year.
Democrats love spending money, especially other people’s money, so you’d think they’d be ecstatic over this latest proposal to finally do something about our crumbling infrastructure. Oddly enough, they’re not.
“Irresponsible.” “Reckless.” “Half-baked.”
Hey, guys – we’re talking about the Governor’s transportation plan, not the Redskins offensive scheme.
But no, this is what the leaders of the Democratic Party in Virginia are saying. Brian Moran, the Democrats’ newly minted head cheerleader, said in a press release that “[a]t a time when our state budget is already perilously balanced on the backs of Virginia’s retirees, we simply can’t afford for the Governor to float a reckless and irresponsible plan to pay for his priorities by borrowing money that we don’t have and cannot pay back without raising taxes. The people of this Commonwealth deserve better leadership than this Jim Gilmore-type financing scheme.”
What I find most ironic about Moran’s concern trolling here is that he actually said “cannot pay back without raising taxes.” Considering that the Democrats’ primary and only real policy position on resolving the transportation funding problem is to raise the gas tax (that’s their idea of creating a ‘dedicated funding source’), wouldn’t this be exactly what he’s looking for? Maybe he’s upset because under their plan, they just raise taxes without borrowing, and cut out the middle man.
But here’s the kicker – Moran didn’t seem to have a problem voting for this “reckless and irresponsible” plan when he was in the General Assembly. The largest chunk of money in the Governor’s plan comes from accellerating $1.8 billion in transportation bonds that were voted on by the General Assembly in 2007. What did Moran say about the bonds at the time? “Overall, it [the bill and bond package] represents significant progress.” So three years ago, it was significant progress. Now it’s reckless and irresponsible.
Good one, Moran.
House Minority Leader Ward Armstrong also attacked the McDonnell plan. He even had the gall to cite the November Republican wave election that just devastated his party nationally and gave Republicans control of the House of Representatives to demonstrate that Virginians don’t like deficit spending. Good to see at least one Democrat got the message, even though his colleagues in Washington didn’t. What Armstrong goes on to say is “[u]nfortunately this is just the latest in a long line of irresponsible and half-baked ideas that fail to address our core problem of generating a long-term sustainable source of funding for our transportation needs.”
He then says “unfortunately the Governor’s lack of leadership on transportation has resulted in a plan that amounts to a back door tax increase on our children.”
You can already guess where I’m going with this. Yes, Armstrong voted for the 2007 bonds too. And I guess, like Moran, he’s not a fan of a back door tax increase when you can go through the front door and increase gas taxes that way.
What’s with these guys? Do they think we’re idiots? That we don’t have Google? That we can’t look this stuff up?
The Governor’s plan puts more money into infrastructure faster than any other plan out there. His opponent never bothered with a plan. I haven’t seen one from the Democrats in Richmond other than simply raising the gas tax. That’s all they’ve got. RPV Chair Pat Mullins called them out on this two weeks ago, asking all the Democrats that have a better plan to put it out there. Instead of responding with a plan, the Democrats whined that we’re the ones who need to be leading.
It’s pathetic. It’s the worst kind of politics out there – the kind of nonsense obstruction for the sake of obstruction that Democrats have been bashing us for nationally for the last two years. It is predicated on the idea that no one is paying attention and they can say that night is day and dark is light and no one will notice.
The Governor’s plan is a solid one, and I hope that it moves forward. It puts real money into the transportation system without having to raise taxes and it does so without breaking the bank, running up debt (all of this is debt that is either already on the books or isn’t budgeted as state debt because it includes a federal component). Having lived for eight years in a state that was a national laughingstock for its infrastructure problems, Pennsylvania, I am 100% in favor of getting as much cash out there fixing roads and bridges as we can get. This plan does that and I hope to see it move quickly in Richmond next month.
Brian…you pointed out two indisputable points. Democrats absolutely love to spend other people’s money — but when the plate lands in front of them , there’s nothing but excuses.
And yes — Governor McDonnell turned up
$$1.5 billion that had been laid back for later partying —and did so in his first month in office.
Ward is the very delusioned and failed politician who has taken Stevens Miller under his crotchety old wing and filled the boy’s head with all kinds of granduer…
And yes….he’s pretty sure that all Virginians are as dumb as rocks and are falling for this hook, line and sinker.
“The Governor’s plan puts more money into infrastructure faster than any other plan out there. His opponent never bothered with a plan. I haven’t seen one from the Democrats in Richmond other than simply raising the gas tax. That’s all they’ve got.”
Brian, What is so great about McDonnell’s “plan”? As far as I can tell from your post, his plan is to spend a bunch of money on roads and infrastructure and put a great deal of that spending on the state debt. Now does it really take a genius to know how to spend money? Granted, I may not like the concept of increasing the gas tax but at least the D’s addressed how to REALLY pay for this BEFORE they planned to spend the money. You can not simply say that floating bonds is a way of “paying” for spending. It is a way of “funding” something but it needs to be paid back at sometime. Please expalin how the Governor intends to address that part of the equation. Is it in his plan? BTW, I am not against the idea of floating bonds to pay for infrastructure – that IS how things should be done. I just don”t see it as much of a “plan” to be lauded.
That being said, the Dems are taking the wrong tactic in saying that putting this on debt is bad (especially when they voted for the very same thing in the past). What they should have said is that they are glad that Gov. McDonnell has FINALLY realized that the infrastructure needs of VA require new debt that will untimately need to be repaid by the tax payers of Virginia. It is about time he gave up the ruse that taxes will not have to be raised eventually in this state to pay for necessary government services.
Eric, it may not take a great genius to figure out how to spend money, but then again, apparently our last Democratic governor wasn’t a great genius, as he left over $1.5 billion lying around collecting dust and not fixing roads and putting Virginians to work.
What’s great about the plan is that we’re finally seeing some action on transportation. They money will come from two sources – general funds sources over time and future federal highway money that we will inevitably get, especially since I expect we’ll see a highway bill sometime in the next four years.
There’s no reason why we can’t pay this debt back using future tax revenue without needing a tax increase.
Brian: I was kind of with you there, until you started paying the bonds back with imaginary future general funds and federal highway money.
That’s not too different than the governor’s previous plans to pay for roads with fairy dust oil and gas royalties that never existed — and could not exist under current law — and the imaginary windfall from privatizing the ABC stores.
(I’m for privatizing them, by the way, and wrote about it before the McDonnell campaign. It’s just not going to create any highway money, particularly at the bargain basement price the governor was considering.)
It’s okay to fund infrastructure improvements through debt. Now, with both construction costs and interest rates at recent lows, is a good time to do that. However, responsible debt financing requires that you identify up front REAL money that you’re going to use to retire the debt.
When those bonds were originally approved by the General Assembly they were in a bill that contained a slew of tax and fee hikes that local governments were forced to pretend were their decision. But there was revenue to service the bonds.
So, there’s nothing wrong with the governor’s plan to use bonds to build roads, but he can’t pretend paying off the bonds is somebody else’s problem.
It’s not going to be somebody else’s problem. They’ll be paid back over time, which is the point of funding them through a bond issue rather than just appropriating the money. The goal is to ensure that we don’t have to raise taxes in order to repay them.
Gas royalties would have existed, had President Obama not barred any exploration of the costs after the Gulf Oil spill. The sale of the ABC stores would have generated some revenue, and I agree we need to get top dollar for it, so if that plan has to be revisted, so be it, so long as we get cash for transportation.
The REAL MONEY is in the budget right now. It will simply have to be cut from other programs that aren’t as important.
Gas Royalties- doubtful. I know Goodlatte had a bill. You presume it would have passed. I don’t.
Paying for debt service with cuts — you realize we’ve cut at least $7 billion from the budget in the last five years, right? Richmond isn’t Washington. There isn’t infinite fat in the budget to target.
Steve, yes, I recognize we’ve cut $7 billion. And we’ve had to, as we’ve been in a major recession for two of those last five years. As the economy picks back up, we’ll have new revenue that’s not budgeted coming in and we can dump it into transportation. The rest can come from cuts.
Richmond isn’t Washington, and we have to live within our means. And I believe that means working with what’s coming in and not raising taxes unless we have literally tried everything else and there’s simply no other way to pay for anything.
Obviously I’m not as convinced of the “no tax cut” dogma as you are.
That should be “no tax hike” of course. I know Brian’s not against tax cuts.
I’m not one of these 100% never raise taxes ever types. But if we are going to raise taxes, I want to know that it’s the absolute last resort, and we’ve tried everything else we can before we do it. Taxes are a big deal and I want them treated with the respect they deserve to be treated by legislators.
The problem, I think, Brian, is that we’re rapidly approaching the point where we have tried everything.
The Governor’s plan is just about the end-of-the-line for ‘solutions’ without additional revenue. It’s not necessarily a bad idea and I don’t oppose it, but it’s a stop-gap. The day of reckoning is coming sooner than we’d all like.
“The REAL MONEY is in the budget right now. It will simply have to be cut from other programs that aren’t as important.”
This line of reasoning is about as responsible as saying that just putting the improvements on debt/bonds is considered “paying” for them. “Other programs that aren”t as important” is not “REAL MONEY” and leads to the inevitable question of “which programs” and “important to who”?
When challenged, Brian, you shift to “as the economy picks back up, we’ll have new revenue that’s not budgeted coming in and we can dump it into transportation.” These theoretical revenues are based on what assumed rate of growth of the VA economy? How many years out are you expecting this growth to occur and in what sector? Certainly not government sector jobs as that will decidedly DECREASE over the same period of time. So what rate of decrease in the government sector economy has Bob assumed in his projections? Oh, wait, you mean he did not actually MAKE these projections? He hasn’t really thought through how he is going to pay back these bonds? He is just trusting that thing will work out OK? Hmmmm, maybe the Dems have a point….
Eric, come on. Private sector expansion, which we have started to see increasing with the addition of new companies and the expansion of current companies in Virginia like General Dynamics will result in an increased tax base.
There’s nothing irresponsible in saying that the government is going to have to make tough choices in order to fix things that are priorities now. Yes, cuts require making those tough choices and that’s why we elect people to make those choices for us.
When challenged, I simply say what I said before again – between budget cuts and the inevitable expansion of the economy that all the Democrats claim is just around the corner, we will have enough money to pay these bonds back over time. Even if the economy grows at 1% a year, we should be able to pay these back without difficulty. Our GDP in Virginia is almost $400 billion a year.
Where were you asking all of these questions three years ago when the Democrats proposed and passed these bonds and the courts struck down the tax increases to pay for them? Why didn’t the Democrats rescind the bond issue?
“Where were you asking all of these questions three years ago when the Democrats proposed and passed these bonds and the courts struck down the tax increases to pay for them? Why didn’t the Democrats rescind the bond issue?”
Okay, this statement just flatly mistates what happened.
That transportation deal was largely a deal between Senate and House Republicans, largely brokered by then Attorney General Bob McDonnell.
Yes, some most Democrats voted for the unconstitutional bill, as did most Republicans. But to say the Dems “proposed and passed” these bonds is just flat wrong.
Steve, there was a Democratic Governor and a Democratic Senate. You had the Democratic leadership voting for these bonds. Don’t try and wiggle out of it.
I’m not trying to wriggle out of anything, just setting the record straight. That tranpo bill was compromise on the Republican side, with a lot of McDonnell input. And you’re wrong about the Democratic Senate. HB 3202 passed in the 2007 session, Democrats did not take back control of the State Senate until November of 2007, after that bill was passed.
My mistake – I thought the Dems had control at that point.