WashPost on Virginia Transportation Spending
by Judd WileyApril 11th, 2008, 11:04 am
Two days ago, the Washington Post published an infuritating editorial on Virginia’s transportation woes. It began:
Virginia’s bucket of money for highway and mass transit projects has sprung a major leak. The skyrocketing cost of upkeep and repair, which by state law take precedence over construction, is draining away money originally intended for building and improving the state’s increasingly inadequate network of major roads. Memo to traffic-stressed commuters: Brace yourselves for much worse to come.
Much hand-wringing followed about how the state’s aging roads and bridges are crumbling, and how road-building funds are thus “leeching” into the maintenance budget at an alarming rate. Very few new roads will get built, the Post grimly announced, even in the state’s congestion hubs. The culprit? Why, the Virginia Supreme Court, which unanimously ruled in February 2008 that unelected members of the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority and the Hampton Roads Transportation Authority couldn’t collect millions of dollars of new taxes from citizens who didn’t elect them.
Well, enough is enough, according to the Post. Tough measures must be taken:
With good reason, Democratic lawmakers in Richmond are giving notice that it will not be enough simply to reinstate the funding package struck down by the court. Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) is also spreading word that he wants a statewide effort to address the problem, not just a patch for the urban areas.
In other words, we need to raise taxes, because we need more money to fix Virginia’s traffic congestion problems.
Really? Let’s take a look at what’s going on behind the scenes in Richmond.
According to the Department of Planning and Budget, Virginia will spend $4.3 billion on transportation in FY 08, or 12% of its total budget. But last year the state spent $4.9 billion, or 14% of its total budget. Hmmm.
So we decreased transportation spending by $574 million this year, even though we took in an additional $800 million in taxes!
Where did that $574 million go? According to the DPB, spending on education rose by $575 million, while spending on health and human resources increased by $573 million.
What are some of the education programs that received additional funding in FY 08?. Direct aid to the Department of Education went up by $182 million. UVA got $44 million extra, Virginia Tech got $42 million extra, UVA Medical Center $71 million, James Madison University $24 million, Virginia Commonwealth $49 million, George Mason University $48 million, Virginia community colleges $36 million. Something called the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia got an additional $15 million. Oh, and the Virginia Commission on the Arts got an extra $1.5 million. So everyone got more money to play with.
Health and human resources did pretty well too. The Department of Medical Assistance Services got an extra $439 million. The Department of Social Services received an additional $69 million. An additional $22 million went to Comprehensive Services for At-Risk Youth and Families (whatever that is), $14 million to the Department for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing, and $6.7 million to the Virginia Center for Behavioral Rehabilitation. The Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation, and Substance Abuse Services also got an extra $7.7 million.
All of this while transportation dollars are decreased by more than half a billion dollars. And the Washington Post has the nerve to claim:
Republican legislators are burying their heads in the muddy banks of the James River. Never mind that the General Assembly has not tapped a new funding source for transportation since Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Rather than contemplate raising statewide taxes for roads, Republicans would rather that Virginians sit in ever-worse traffic, even at peril to the economic vitality of Northern Virginia.
Actually, what the General Assembly did was to decrease transportation spending by $574 million, while increasing education spending by $575 million and health and human resources spending by $573 million.
The buffoons in Richmond need to restore our transportation dollars. We pay enough damn taxes already. And the idiots at the Washington Post need to stick to covering Hillary and Barack.
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