Albo Kicks and Misses Wide Right

By: Albo Must Go
Published On: 2/25/2007 3:04:33 PM

(cross posted at Albo Must Go)

In today's Washington Post, Delegate Dave Albo posits the notion that the Republicans have just "delivered" a big transportation investment. (A nice summary of the plan can be found on Vivian Paige's blog by clicking here.) What a joke.

Joke #1 - This is a General Fund Raid
Delegate Dave Albo should be boasting that this is the biggest General Fund raid in history. The most of the General Assembly's "funding" is (a) "capitalizing" "surpluses" (turning it into bonded debt) and (b) taking existing revenues and dumping them into the Transportation Trust Fund.

What's wrong with this? Three problems.
Joke #1A - Surpluses never last (ask Jim Gilmore).

Joke #1B Transportation dollars can never compete with General Fund dollars.
When recessions hit, the first thing legislators cut is transportation projects (they are discretionary and employees have to be paid) and the second thing they cut is colleges (and get parents to pay more tuition). This is no solution - it is kicking the can down the road and moving the deck chairs on the Titanic. Moreover, Albo Must Go views this as nothing more than a back door repeal and/or rewiring of the widely-lauded investments into schools, health care, and public safety that Gov. Mark Warner pressed through in 2004 that Delegate Dave Albo railed and voted against. Now the Republicans have their revenge.

Joke #1C - This is a Tax on Children
A large part of the up front funding for transportation costs in this plan is the use of bond debt. Let's make this clear - BOND FINANCING FOR ROAD PROJECTS IS NOTHING EXCEPT A TAX ON CHILDREN. Republicans use debt to pay for everything because you don't have to pay now. This is another example of this generation refusing to pay for the problems they have made themselves and instead pushing off their obligations on Virginia's children. The way Del. Dave Albo structures government, you'd think he'd ask his infant son to sign the promissory note on the next new car he finances. What is it with this generation of "leaders"?

Joke #2 - A Shrinking drop in the bucket
In 2000, Governor Warner pressed the General Assembly to adopt legislation requiring VDOT to engage in long-term planning. The product was VTRANS 2025. The final product of which concluded that Virginia had $108.4 BILLION (yes, billion) of unfunded transportation needs over the next two decades.

This plan shifts around money to put something like $1.5 billion per year into the Transportation Trust Fund (again, much of it simply reallocating existing revenues). That's about $3.5 BILLION per year short and when the recession hits, it'll be a lot more short than that (but that will be another legislature's problem, right!).

Joke #3 - The Northern Virginia Component Is Not Paid by YOU
Delegate Dave Albo's widely touted Northern Virginia only funding is a shell game. The primary funding mechanism authorizes several local option taxes (a commercial property tax, a hotel tax, $100 "initial" driver license fees, and a fee you pay when you sell your house).

Joke #3A - Shifting the Blame
The Prince William County and Loudoun County Boards of Supervisors have already said they will note vote for these taxes. Fairfax County Board Chairman Gerry Connolly has already come out against these taxes. Why?

Point A - Roads are the State's responsibility - not local government
(It's only been that way since about 1920 when Gov. Harry F. Byrd took over the roads from struggling local governmentts);

Point B - Prince William and Fairfax County taxpayers have already made substantial invesments in roads via bonds for the Fairfax County Parkway, the Prince William County Parkway and other projects; and

Point C - Northern Virginians also pay over 40% of the Commonwealth of Virginia budget even though we make up only 25% of the state's population.

Whatever happened to Delegate Dave Albo getting some of our money back?

Joke 3B - These taxes and "fees" will not be paid by tax payers
Six months ago, Delegate Dave Albo wrote an interesting posting on the blog Too Conservative, bragging about how his plan was being funded by anyone except taxpayers so it didn't violate his six years of anti-tax pledges to Jack Abramoff's pal, Grover Norquist. We have some questions for Delegate Dave Albo:

Question #1 - Who will commercial property owners pass the tax increases on to? Surely all of these wealthy businesses, apartments, etc. are just going to take less profit out of their pockets and not pass it along to their tenants, right? (yeah right) YOU will pay for these tax increases with every purchase, rent payment, or service you purchase from anyone renting or owning commerical property in Northern Virginia whether you choose to walk, bicycle, or sit on your butt all day.  They should have just called this a value added tax.

Question #2 - Why not raise gas taxes or charge sales taxes on gas?
Answer - numerous studies show that over 30% of all gas taxes are paid by non-Virginians. If we have the chance, why not get other people, the ones who use our roads, to pay for them? That would be the best Delegate Dave Albo could do to protect our taxpayers.Delegate Dave Albo could do to protect our taxpayers.

Joke #4 - These taxes have something to do with transportation costs.
Delegate Dave Albo claims that these taxes have some rational relationship to transportation for purposes of funding this need. Why not raise gas taxes?

Point #1 - Gas taxes are use taxes designed to measure your use of public transportation facilities, discourage excessive consuption of scarce resources, and have been Virginia's traditional source of road monies.
Point #2 - Virginia's gas taxes are levied as pennies per gallon instead of a percentage. Because of this, revenues have not kept up with inflationary
pressures on road maintenance expenses.
Point #3 - As cars become more efficent, people pay less gas taxes per mile than they ever have. Former Republican Sen. Kevin Miller from Harrisonburg used to introduce a gas tax bill every year and would produce his calculations showing how many pennies he was paying per mile in 1975 as compared with today.
What is the reality of this plan?
This problem could be simply and legally solved with one thing - increasing gas taxes or applying the sales tax to gas. That is something that Del. Dave Albo and his Republican ideologues cannot philosophically bring themselves to do.

The primary objective of this plan was to give Delegate Dave Albo and several endangered Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads Senators some election year cover - THAT'S IT. This "plan" is also carefully crafted in a means for Delegate Dave Albo, Sen. Cuccinelli, and others to be able to claim that they are still abiding by their pledge to Grover Norquist that they "will oppose any and all tax increases."

Delegate Dave Albo knew going in that none of the local funding will be approved by the local Boards of Supervisors - so now he can claim he did something and shift the blame to Gerry Connolly, et al. in an election year.

THIS PLAN IS COMPLETE ABDICATION OF LEADERSHIP, A JOKE, A GILMORESQUE REPUBLICAN SHELL GAME. VOTERS SHOULD BE OUTRAGED AND GOVERNOR KAINE SHOULD VETO IT BACK TO THE IDEOLOGICAL TRASH BIN FROM WHENCE IT WAS SPAWN.


Comments



Oh, for God's sake, grow up (jmvfrva - 2/25/2007 3:29:16 PM)
I hate when politicians play the child card.  This is not a tax on children.  It's an attempt by some hapless blogger to fan the flames of hysteria. 

It may be a flawed transportation plan.  But, I'm so sick and tired of "progressive liberals" always crying about how this or that is a "tax on children" or how "children will be harmed" or how it is "unfair to children" and so on. 

I'm 48 years old.  I grew up in an era when politicians did not play the child card.  Some how, I grew up fine.  The government did not protect me - my parents did.  Thank God for that!

Grow up and learn how to debate on issues on facts rather than foolish accusations about how children will be harmed.



Ok, how about how adults will be harmed (Lowell - 2/25/2007 3:40:45 PM)
through cuts in money for public safety and health care?  How about how the environment will be hurt through cuts to funding for Chesapeake Bay cleanup, land preservation, etc?  How about how ALL of us will be hurt when our children - yes, CHILDREN - will grow up without the tools they need to compete in a global economy, thanks to cuts in education funding?  This Republican "compromise" is simply bad public policy, not in our self interests, irresponsible, and cynical.


Yeah well... (doctormatt06 - 2/25/2007 4:06:55 PM)
I'm 23, and as a representative of the generation who has to pay for things in the future, why don't you learn to find ways to pay for things you want to do, instead of burying my generation in debt by the time we're your age.  We've learned from you older people, we don't want credit debt, because its a very very bad thing.  You guys are definitely the 'ME' generation, cuz you don't care about anybody but yourself.  I guess its true, some traits skip a generation, like the ability to sacrifice things for the greater good. 


Hey, I'm 44 and I completely agree with you (Lowell - 2/25/2007 4:13:04 PM)
Don't blame my entire generation for the first commenter's ignorance.


Hmm... (doctormatt06 - 2/25/2007 5:17:49 PM)
Well...

ok ok...you're right...

sorry...

I just hate people who act like, they aren't hurting the future generations by paying for everything with debt...

I apologize to those who I might have lumped together unnecessarily



Grow Up? (Albo Must Go - 2/25/2007 4:32:51 PM)
Who should be growing up jmvrva?  The generation of Republicans that wants to pay for everything they see with debt instead of their own money or who?  I'm not clear.

Responsible adults don't borrow heaps of money to pay for current needs. 

Last time I looked, Republicans never saw a dollar they didn't want to borrow.  The Republican solution to everything is just to borrow more money and kick the problems down the road to the next guy to get elected. 



By the way, thanks for joining us at RK (Lowell - 2/25/2007 4:36:08 PM)
I see that you just signed up today to post your comment.  Very interesting.


I'm 57; try telling the truth JMVFRVA (PM - 2/25/2007 5:06:52 PM)
The national GOP has put us in a huge hole -- with that lovely Iraq war you guys started -- $1 trillion and counting -- who's going to pay for that?

Virginia's share of the Iraq war debt makes this transportation spending issue chump change.

Yeah, I have two young kids, and I don't appreciate how the GOP has mortgaged their future.

Remember the budget surpluses under Clinton?  Gone.

FELLOW PROGRESSIVES: NOTICE THE CHEAP TRICK THE GOP USES WHEN THEY'RE WRONG ON THE FACTS.  THEY START YELLING SLOGANS. UNFAIR!  DON'T BRING CHILDREN INTO THIS!  JUST REPLY WITH THE FACTS  . . STOP SLOGANEERING!

THE MODERN GOP -- EVERYTHING THEY SAY IS A LIE, INCLUDING "A", "AND" and "THE"

---from a once loyal Republican who had the sense to quit the party in 1992.



As a 20 year old... (uva08 - 2/25/2007 5:17:10 PM)
I get a headache thinking about how much debt we will have to pay off later on down the road.  These wars, the tax cuts for the wealthy, and now 3 billion in debt for VA transportation.  Oh I'm sorry its *only* 2.5 billion.


novamiddleman (novamiddleman - 2/25/2007 5:50:37 PM)
You know what some of these points actually make alot of sense

It would be nice to take some of these and some of the things in the passed plan and create the perfect plan

The problem is everybodys want difference pieces from each set of ideas to make their own perfect plan

Time for more sausage making



No, time for leadership from Gov. Kaine (Lowell - 2/25/2007 6:36:10 PM)
:)


edit (novamiddleman - 2/25/2007 5:53:00 PM)
whoops need to edit that some

The problem is everybodys want difference pieces from each set of ideas to make their own perfect plan

should say

The problem is everybody wants different pieces from each set of ideas to make their own perfect plan



Give Credit Where Credit is Due-Albo Delivered (breland1 - 2/25/2007 6:45:10 PM)
For once lets give credit where credit is due. Dave Albo started this transporation effort 20 months ago when he and Tom Rust filed the first transportation funding bill last Session and, along with Chris Jones, the first statewide transportation bill in the Special Session.  This proves that Albo is one of the most effective legislators in all of Virginia.  As the Washington Post said in its front page story, this is "... the first transportation plan in a generation..." Where would Virginia be if all delegates did what Brian Moran has done for transportation(nothing)?



You've got to be kidding (MV Democrat - 2/25/2007 7:05:44 PM)
You call this being effective?

Albo is only effective if you're talking about getting a special interest bill through the legislature.  He's been prolific in rewarding the alcohol and restaurant industry, hooking up tobacco, pushing bills for people looking to buy the Dulles Toll Road, and doing anything and everything he can for anyone but the 42nd district.

This transportation bill steals money from medicaire, special education, and prisons to pay for roads.  Six months ago Albo was voting against childcare for 1900 poor kids. 

His constituents would happily pay more gas taxes for road improvements.  He's out of touch with his constituents and in touch with no one except Richmond special interests and Speaker Howell whose ring Albo has to kiss to keep to keep his Committee Chairmanship. 

If Albo's so effective and his party leadership respects him so much, why wasn't he on the Conference Committee for this bill? 



Albo Delivered A Rube Goldberg Machine (PM - 2/25/2007 7:12:01 PM)
And where was Brian Moran going to get the votes?  From the bi-partisan Republicans?

Don't insult us with lies.  Multiple attempts were made on the Senate side by both D's and the few moderate R's, and by House Dems, to bring some sustainable taxes into the equation.  (Gee, another new name here, with a brand new account.)

Former GOP pollster Frank Luntz gave some wise advice to the national GOP in his Post op-ed today:

How Can the GOP Get Moving Again? Drop the Dirty Politics and Get Real.
  http://www.washingto...  The VA GOP would be wise to heed his advice.


This "Transportation Plan" is a HUGE joke (Chris in the 42nd - 2/26/2007 1:09:39 AM)
Don't worry, Kaine will make changes in the plan.  He will never sign onto this smoke and mirrors game.  The real question is when he presents Albo and the remainder of these completely out of touch Republicans with a real plan what will they do?

My guess is that Albo will do the one thing he does best over the past 4 years:  Kill transportation plans for Northern Virginia.



A disgrace of a Bill (Chris in the 42nd - 2/26/2007 1:16:32 AM)
This bogus plan is summed up quite well by Chap:

http://blog.oxroadso...



Our Party (snowbird.2007 - 2/26/2007 6:15:18 PM)
If our party, who just sits around and sends Dave Albo hate blogs all day on this blog and on Albo Must Go had their way, there would be no Dave Albo in the House, and there would be no Transportation solution either.


Stop creating new identities and debate like a man (PM - 2/26/2007 6:57:50 PM)
Have something of substance to say?  Well, then, say it.  Stop creating new identities.