This changes everything

When the McDonnell Administration revealed its plan to get the government out of the liquor business, I had my concerns – and I wasn’t exactly quiet about them.

After some further review, I decided the problems with the plan were smaller than I thought, but they hadn’t disappeared.  In particular, there were two new taxes that I felt were unwarranted – the 2.5% “optional convenience fee” and the 1% wholesale receipts tax (euphemistically dubbed a “license charge”).  I called them tax increases, several bloggers expressed disagreement (Mason Conservative, Brain Schoeneman, VA Blogger – albeit in various comments, rather than posts - and Jim Hoeft among them).

Well, I could say the Governor himself agreed with me, but rather than kick that hornet’s nest again, I’ll just say he rendered the symantic discussion moot, because the taxes are gone (Richmond Times-Dispatch):

The revised plan, endorsed today by a gubernatorial subcommittee on government reform, would eliminate the proposed 2.5 percent optional tax on restaurant alcohol sales and a 1 percent tax on wholesale liquor sales.

Folks, this changes everything. Simply put, the McDonnell ABC privatization plan no longer includes tax increases.

Clearly, the Administration decided the $26.5 million that would have come from these taxes wasn’t really worth it after all.  Good for them.  I would also note that I do not agree with the Wine and Beer Wholesalers’ Associations on the nature of the new excise tax (here’s why).

There were many of us who were concerned that McDonnell hadn’t learned the lesson of the Summer 2008 special session (namely, that Republicans and tax hikes don’t mix).  Thankfully, we can put those fears to rest now.

Cross-posted to BD

Rease pulls ahead?

Rasmussen says he does.

 Republican John Raese has edged ahead of West Virginia’s popular Democratic Governor Joe Manchin for the first time in the state’s special U.S. Senate race.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey of Likely West Virginia Voters finds Raese earning 48% support to Manchin’s 46% when leaners are included. Two percent (5%) prefer some other candidate, and four percent (4%) are undecided.

Now, the NRA endorsement of Manchin could shift things, but I still believe this race will continue to be a huge headache for the Democrats.  Without an icon or self-funder on their ticket, the Dems are getting the full-force of the Mountain State’s 21st-Century friendliness to the GOP.

As for Manchin, again, he may actually suffer from the fact that he’s still Governor – and thus all of those who like him but can’t stand the Obama Administration can tell themselves they’re just voting to keep him in the state capital.

Cross-posted to VV

Best “birther” line comes from across the pond

Courtesy of Dan Hannan:

Barack Obama born in Kenya? Pah! If anything, he was born in Brussels.

Beautiful.

Cross-posted to VV

Joe Manchin, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory

So you’re a very popular Governor, running for the U.S. Senate as the nominee of a rather unpopular party (the Democrats).  Your race is suddenly competitive, and while you expected your personal history as a centrist Democrat to help your cause, you also knew (or should have known) that at least some of those voters will be saying to themselves, “You know, I can send this Republican to Washington to stop Obamacare and still have Joe Manchin as my Governor.”

So what do you do in an attempt to restore your luster.

Well, Joe tried the dishonesty route, and it didn’t work (Weekly Standard):

The NRSC is highlighting West Virginia governor Joe Manchin’s recent claim to West Virginia Gazette reporter Alison Knezevich that he wouldn’t have voted for Obamacare:

“I wouldn’t have voted for the final version of that thing with the way that it came out.”

The NRSC points out a YouTube clip of Manchin saying he was “totally behind health care reform.” But that was from September 2009. Manchin, now the Democratic candidate for Robert Byrd’s vacant Senate seat, could have easily changed his mind between then and the vote on the “final verion” of “that thing” in March 2010. But he didn’t:

During a March 15, 2010 panel on health care at the National Governors Association in Washington, Manchin said that he would vote for the health care bill if he were a congressman. The panel’s moderator, journalist Karen Tumulty, asked Manchin and other governors on the panel, “If you were a House member … and you’ve got your choice: vote up on the Senate bill or vote down on the Senate bill, how do you vote?”

“I’d be for it,” Manchin replied. “You have to move this ball forward. … I have never, since I’ve been in the legislative process, and since I have been governor, I have never got a perfect bill.”

Oops.

I’ve kept my eye on this race from the moment Robert Byrd punched his ticket to the Great Beyond.  This is the first Senate race West Virginia has had with and no icon (Byrd) and no old money heir (Jay Rockefeller) since 1978 – and back then the GOP wasn’t winning the state’s electoral votes with regularity (2008 was the first time West Virginia voted for a losing Republican candidate for President since 1916).  Admittedly, Manchin is the best the Democrats have, but he’s clearly showing that counts for a lot less than anyone expected.

West Virginia has a history of surprises.  It’s own creation was a surprise – the Unionists in what was the northwest region of Virginia had restored state government in the Old Dominion before the first shot was fired in the War of the Rebellion.

If Manchin keeps stepping on his rake, expect another “surprise” from West Virginia this November.

Cross-posted to BD

VDOT audit finds nearly $1 billion stuck in the pipeline

Yes, that’s billion . . . with a “b” (Richmond Times-Dispatch):

 The Virginia Department of Transportation left more than $900 million in maintenance funds unspent over the last two fiscal years because of “burdensome internal processes and financial controls,” an independent audit of the state highway department shows.

The audit by the Richmond-based accounting firm of Cherry Bekaert & Holland found that about $390 million went unspent in fiscal 2009 and $529 million in fiscal 2010.

Total unspent balance: $919 million - or nearly 30% of VDOT’s entire annual budget (VA DOB).

This comes, of course, as Kaine was closing down rest stops and screaming for tax increases – ostensibly for roads.

Meanwhile, as the RTD story makes clear, most of the backlog was during the Kaine years.

According to Transportation Secretary Sean Connaughton, the Six-Year road plan could get a extra $1.5 billion (the above money included) as a result of what was found in the audit.

Cross-posted to VV and On the Spot

Stay classy, Loretta

To those still foolish enough to think only the Republicans are racist, I present Loretta Sanchez, Democrat from SoCal running for her eighth term in Congress against Republican Van Tran (Powerline).

The Vietnamese and the Republicans are – with an intensity – trying to take away this seat

So much for post-racial America, eh?

Cross-posted to BD

The perils of fighting Wahhabism

Yet another moderate Muslim speaks – Abdul Rahman al-Rashid used his position as manager of the Al-Arabiyya television network to lodge his objections to Park51 (a.k.a., the “Ground Zero mosque”).  In an even more daring move, the network put out Islam and the West, a program which put Wahhabism squarely in the cross-hairs (The Egyptian Today).  FWIW, I consider the latter to be far more important, given Wahhabism prominent role in Pakistan (and thereby, the British Muslim) and Islam in the United States.  It was remarkably bold.

Sadly, as the Saudi monarchy owns Al-Arabiyya, it turned out to be too bold, and al-Rashid was bounced.  TET reports that other resignations – either out of solidarity or as part of a purge (the effect will be the same) – may follow.

I mention this for a couple of reasons.  First, the quest for “moderate Muslims” among the chattering classes (left and right) tend to miss the role tyrannical governments play in silencing them.  Followers of the Islam faith who do not wish to completely upend Western Civilization tend to have serious problems with Wahhabism.  However, Wahhabism has survived and spread mainly due to two entities – the Saudi royal family and the Pakistani military.  The former’s oil wealth and the latter’s military strength (courtesy of adroitly – and temporarily – aligning themselves against various global scourges) have combined to make it look more like standard Islam than the dangerous and ridiculed offshoot it actually is (especially here in the US, where more than 75% of all mosques are Saudi funded).

Islam is a faith with many sects, but its most worrisome and violent ones (Khomeinism and Wahhabism) would be meaningless without the backing of the Tehran and Riyadh regimes, respectively.  It is yet another reminder that the WBK War (a.k.a. the Global War on Terror) is not a war against a religion, but a war against tyrants very much of this world.

Cross-posted to VV

Chris Coons’ tax hiking history

Amidst all of the whirlwind surrounding Delaware Republican Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell, far too little attention has been paid to Chris Coons.  Byron York helps fix that problem in his Examiner column:

Coons, 47, is the top executive of New Castle County, home to a majority of Delaware’s population. From a Republican perspective, there’s one really important thing to know about his time in office: In 2004, when Coons first ran for the job, he promised not to raise taxes. Since then he has raised taxes not once, not twice, but three times.

Coons inherited a surplus. Celebrating victory on election night in 2004, he said his “top priority would be to continue balancing the budget without increasing property taxes,” according to an account in the local News Journal. Yet in 2006, he pushed through a 5 percent increase in property taxes. In 2007, he raised property taxes 17.5 percent. In 2009, he raised them another 25 percent.

Note that unlike here in Virginia, the New Castle County exec is elected.

Now, this being local government, one has to be careful about how tax increases are defined; the rate is only half the story (a 25% rate increase on properties that were reassessed 30% downward would, in fact, be a tax reduction).  So I took a look at the New Castle County website to get an idea of when they do county-wide reassessments.

This is what I found in re Assessments: “New Castle County property assessments are based upon 1983 property values.”

1983?!?!?!

Truth be told, individual properties get reassessed if there are changes made, and like most northeastern states, Delaware counties are jigsaw puzzles of towns.  Still, to have had no reassessment in 27 years?

More to the point, though, this confirms that rate increases are tax increases in New Castle.  So, while Coons was County Executive, New Castle County has experienced a 54% overall property tax increase.

Ouch!!

Christine O’Donnell – by contrast, and for all her faults – has not raised taxes on anybody.

I’m just sayin’.

Cross-posted to VV

Your tax dollars (not) at work

Kudos to LA City Comptroller Wendy Greuel (a Democrat, no less) for coming clean (Int’l Business Times via The Corner):

The Los Angeles City Controller said on Thursday the city’s use of its share of the $800 billion federal stimulus find has been disappointing.

The city received $111 million in stimulus under American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) approved by the Congress more than year ago.

“I’m disappointed that we’ve only created or retained 55 jobs after receiving $111 million,” says Wendy Greuel, the city’s controller, while releasing an audit report.

That’s over $2 million per job. Nicely done!

Truth be told, Los Angeles – while being home to Hollywood, the Dodgers, and other entities that specialize in fantasy – can be rather clear-eyed when it comes to the public purse (it’s one of the few cities that has repeatedly told the NFL what it can do with taxpayer-funded football stadiums). I suspect in this case, the City of Angels is one of the few places where the failure of the stimulus will be acknowledged.

Cross-posted to VV

Redefining “yellow dog Democrat” – and not in a good way

Harry Reid took a break from infuriating his own constituents to embarrass his fellow Democrats in Delaware.

Reid was talking about the Democrats’ nominee, tax-hiker Chris Coons.  The soon-to-be ex-Senator from Nevada had this to say (The Hill via Weekly Standard, which added the emphasis):

I’ve always thought Chris Coons is going to win. I told him that and I tried to get him to run. I’m glad he’s running. I just think the world of him. He’s my pet.

He’s what?!?!

No wonder Christine O’Donnell is breaking fundraising goals faster than she can set them.

Cross-posted to VV