ABC Privatization Looks Good To Me

I've purposefully spent the last few days silent on Gov. McDonnell's ABC privatization proposals and scanned the papers and blogs collecting what's out there.  When DJ went nuts a few days ago my aentenna went up because I'm usually in tune with his thinking but suddenly slashes went through his points.  Brian had a good response and I tend to agree with him no matter how smug it is in it decrying "end-all-taxes now" wing of the party.  But his points hold, and frankly I think too many are nit-picking, its a pretty good looking proposal.

What I really disagree with is that this someone gives Senate Democrats a chance to wrap themselves in the banner of fiscal discipline.  First off, apparently Sean Connaughton is going to be releasing some game-changing facts about VDOT.  But with regards to this issue, what hurt Republicans during the 00s was the lack of any real ideas, and here McDonnell is trying something new and working on reforming and out-dated and out-moded system of the ABC stores not to just Virginia a one-time jolt of money to cover our bases, but to create a sustained stream of revenue through taxes and fees imposed on the sale of alcohol.

The real reason that I don't get fired up like DJ has is that a) this is the first time I've seen government actually release control of something, and b) when something is going from government owned to privately owns the definitions of tax increases change for me.  If a current private liquor apparatus existed right now and we were raising taxes and fees on retailers and consumers I'd be grabbing my torch and pitchfork, too.  But the point of this privatization is to completely invent a new revenue system and that requires doing exactly what the McDonnell Administration is doing right now.  McDonnell has shown me nothing to convince me that he's a tax-hiker, from his career in the legislature until now.  I tend to give folks a pass for the 2007 transportation boondoggle because I was sucked in, too.  But this is what happens when you stop talking about reform and start instituting REAL reform.  And that is what McDonnell is doing here.  Though mild-mannered, this reform - along with what is down the pipeline with regards to VDOT - is exactly what we wanted and asked for in 2009 when we put these guys in office.  If Democrats oppose these initiatives, they will be the party of no ideas.  Politically what McDonnell is doing is what happened to us in the 2000s, as governor he's taking the initiative and putting Democrats in the position to say no to a full and regular stream of money to transportation.

But I also think ABC privatization is not a separate issue from the VDOT audit that Connaughton is set to release.  They will, and should, go hand in hand since its transportation that this privatization will fuel.  I'm almost scared to know what is in this report since I've seen the idiocy of VDOT every day driving the streets of Fairfax County.  Reform isn't pretty, but this looks real to me.  What we are seeing is Gov. McDonnell trying to usher Virginia government into a new era of reformed state bureacracy, and sustained revenue streams for the needs of the commonwealth.  To scratch and claw along the margins is pointless to me, arguing over nomenclature and terminology simply hampers the reform.  Senators that stand in the way of creating Virginia's first sustained transportation revenue source ever, especially ones from up here, will be on the wrong side of history.   

Comments

[local gop]

wow look at that...we agree.

[local gop]

i have an idea to solve NOVA's road problems....charge an extra 2% sales tax everywhere in the state and dump it all into NOVA roads until every road here meets safety regulations. and i dont even want to hear "its not fair for the rest of the state". do you know how much money from tysons and this county is sent down state to pay for a farm road that maybe 100 people use??? its complete crap.

[Chris]

that idea of course means you trust the ability of the General Assembly or the state to actually make that happen. They've tried before and failed miserably. Raising taxes does nothing but waste more money . . . we've tried that already.

[local gop]

i don see how fixing broken roads is wasting money...

[Send No More Democrats To Richmond]

local,

Democrats have run for office in Northern Virginia for decades upon the faulty premise that if we just send more tax money to Richmond, surely they will send more money back for our transportation needs.

Well, taxes went up more under Mark Warner than they have at any other point in Virginia history and we're still waiting on that funding as our roads crumble.

If McDonald comes through on his own pledge to send us transportation funding by privatizing the liquor stores and charging a liquor license tax, he'll be a damn sight better than Warner, but I'm hesitant to believe it's a long term solution.

Ultimately, there is one and only one way to ensure that Northern Virginia can fix its roads: local control. Raise the money here, spend the money here, and cut Richmond out of the process.

Frankly, if we were even remotely rational in Northern Virginia, cutting the taxes we send to Richmond would be a bi-partisan issue. I don't care whether it's a state gas tax, a state meals tax, or a state alcohol tax: Northern Virginia isn't going to see most of the money it sends down there.

[local gop]

I completely agree.

[Christmas gifts]

i don see how fixing broken roads is wasting money...

[D.J. McGuire]

Chris,

The taxes that come with this are not a necessary part of privatization from a policy perspective. Without the bizarre insistence on "revenue neutrality," they wouldn't be there. Besides, the proposal isn't revenue neutral anyway.

The difference between the McD plan as is and the improvement I would like to see are $26.5M a year. There is enough undesignated surplus already to cover two years of this, and the Guv already junked one tax increase before the plan was even announced. Am I really "nuts" to ask he and/or the legislature make this a clean bill?

[rick]

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