Well, the Supreme Court has killed off NVTA. The money for transit infrastructure is severely reduced. I admit that the concept of allowing a region to tax itself to provide for localized needs doesn’t really bother me. However, I also see the point about having an unelected body directing and collecting taxes and you can’t have the NVTA without both sides. For my part as a local elected guy, I can only work with what the General Assembly gives me and, so as long as we had some revenue to build badly needed infrastructure, I was happy.
The NVTA was, from the get-go, a bit of an dogs’ breakfast with a hodgepodge of local, regional and state fees. Many saw the NVTA as a convoluted way for the General Assembly to dodge having to raise taxes. In a Dillon-rule state (such as Virginia) where the locals can’t do anything unless the General Assembly approves it first, this perception of the NVTA probably has some merit but isn’t very important to me or the people sitting in traffic jams.
The bottom line is that this problem is not going to go away and the GA needs to do something. Many of our local representatives campaigned on having delivered, with the NVTA, a solution for our transportation problems. I would urge them to show us that delivering solutions for their long-suffering constituents is still their number one priority. Figure out something, make tough votes if you have to but please deliver a solution for us.
March 1, 2008 at 10:02 am
If what I read in the papers today is correct, it seems that there is sentiment in the General Assembly to have local governments raise the taxes, not the legislature.
Any idea if Delegate Miller is going to support a solution on the state level or is he going to leave local governments to twist in the wind by giving them the additional taxing authority and, hence, make City Council the bad guys?
March 1, 2008 at 11:52 am
I don’t have any idea what Jackson’s position is on this but I know he’ll work hard to get us a solution.
As to your other question: If the NVTA itself is any guide, the GA will be inclined to leave the solution to the locals. After that, at least some of them will complain that the locals are taxing citizens to death and introduce legislation to eliminate the tax….:)
For my part, I see this as a state responsibility but I’m happy to be the bad guy if it will get something done.
March 1, 2008 at 6:51 pm
I personally am very happy with the Supreme Court ruling on the NVTA. I do not think it is fair that we who live in Prince William County or the City of Manassas have to pay higher taxes when people in Stafford and Faquier County do not have to pay these taxes and use the same roads every day and would benefit from the road improvements paid for by the other jurisdictions. I think that taxing people on proceeds from their house sale was the worst of the taxes that the NVTA imposed. It is not fair to tax people on the sale of their home to pay for roads. I think the only solution is to raise the gasoline tax 1 or 2 cents a gallon and let the money collected go to the local governments where the gas is sold. This tax should go for the entire state.
March 2, 2008 at 9:25 am
At a very high level, NVTA sounded like a “feel good” solution. It made for great press, and most who heard it’s goals would say it sounded like a good idea. But the devil is in the details, and it’s the details that weren’t constitutional.
I pray the GA provides a solution, as it is THEY who MUST!
March 3, 2008 at 10:24 am
Finally the Supreme Court gets it right. Perhaps we are on the verge of a New Dawn here in Virginia! Guess the average citizen is not as stupid as the educated elites who are perched on high profile places think afterall. Another A for grassroots efforts to take the NVTA on. So the good governor must still face the inevitable…………….deal with it before the session closes. A few calls into Senator Colgan’s office reminding him to deliver on what he said in his campaign……..’as a senior senator, I have influence and can bring it home’. The time is now Senator Colgan and Delegate Miller to bring a positive solution to a negative impact of gridlock in northern virginia.
March 12, 2008 at 9:02 pm
Tom Osina, the problem with a statewide tax is that NOVA will be raising the majority of the taxes which will go into the current transportation funding formula. In other words, we get taxed and the rest of the state gets the money.
That is why the regional plan is a better idea in my book. Let the money raised in NOVA stay in NOVA. If the region is going to raise the taxes, then it should be left up to the local governments to decide if they want to raise the revenue for transportation.
Many delegates from across the Commonwealth (both R’s and D’s) will not vote for a regional tax plan unless it is left up to the local governments to raise the revenue. Hence, I am not leaving the “local governments to twist in the wind.” I am trying to keep any tax revenue raised in NOVA to stay in NOVA.