There Are More Important Things Than Politics
- Posted by ryan on November 4th, 2009 filed in Cities, Policy/Politics
I care not a whit for the effort to assign some national importance, as far as political implications go, to the results of yesterday’s elections. I don’t believe the results are very reflective of national sentiment, and to the extent that they are, they’re irrelevant, as the world will probably look a lot different in another 12 (or 36) months.
As a resident of the Washington metropolitan area, however, I do care very much about the policy impact of political outcomes in the District and neighboring states. And I am very worried about the state of Virginia, right now. And if I were Bob McDonnell, I’d be terrified.
As Matt notes, he’s basically walking into the situation with no plan. He wants to cut taxes in a low-tax state that has struggled mightily over the last decade to find revenue to fund the infrastructure improvements it desperately needs. What’s going to give?
Once in office, I suspect that McDonnell will find that he can’t afford to allow the transportation situation in Northern Virginia and the Tidewater to continue to deteriorate. This will probably lead him to pursue some combination of cutting of other key services, neglecting transit to focus on “cheap” roads, and making efforts to seek private funding (or outright privatization of state infrastructure). As he’ll probably have a sympathetic House of Delegates, this is more than a little troubling.
I suspect local government agencies will find themselves increasingly going it alone, or looking to Washington, rather than Richmond, for assistance, but it will be difficult to pursue anything other than small-scale projects in that way, and Richmond can frustrate a lot of plans. There is a chance that McDonnell, faced with absolute crisis, will have a Nixon-goes-to-China moment, but I’m not encouraged by anything in his record that this will happen.
The upside is that he’ll only have four years. But governing the Commonwealth is going to be very, very difficult for McDonnell. The state’s economy is heavily dependent on the third of the population that lives in one of the largest and fastest growing metropolitan areas in the country, which has tried and failed to wring money for infrastructure out of Richmond for most of the last decade, and which is currently suffering from some of the nation’s worst congestion. You’d think a candidate for governor couldn’t get elected without seriously addressing what he intends to do about that, but you’d be wrong. Hopefully, McDonnell’s silence wasn’t a cover for cluelessness.
November 4th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Cluelessness is normally the cover for cowardice. Sincerely, good luck.
November 4th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Excellent analysis, and thank you for it. I’d like to think the GA is more practical than McDonnell and will force him to adopt responsible policies, but I’m not sure.
Virginia struggled like Hell to pull itself up to the position its in now, but with a recession and Kaine using up all the one-off funding tricks at his disposal there’s really only two options: raise taxes or become Mississippi.
November 4th, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Whoa, hold up there Average American. One should never use the terms “Virginia General Assembly” and “responsible” in the same sentence if you wish to be taken seriously. The whole reason the Kaine administration couldn’t get anything done on transportation funding for 4 years was the flat earth idiot republicans running the House of Delegates who think gas taxes should be constitutionally forbidden. Now there are more of them thanks to the Hindenburg that was the Creigh Deeds campaign. If you wish to get a sample of the insane folks running the show down at the GA see Howell, William or Marshall, Bob or better yet our neanderthal new AG Ken Cuccinelli.
November 4th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
For folks of McDonnell’s ideological bent, becoming Mississippi sound good.
November 4th, 2009 at 6:07 pm
I expect I-95/I-395 HOT lanes to make a comeback. Arlington, stand firm. The Silver Line is funded, at least to Reston. It’s still possible that the Washington-Richmond HSIPR Track 2 money will come through. Otherwise, there really is no money. McDonnell has no plan to get any: selling the State liquor stores! I would expect the Senate to obstruct moving money from other pots into transportation. Arlington and Alexandria have a somewhat freer hand to do stuff locally than Fairfax County does, but they don’t have any money, either. Looks like it’s going to be an uneventful four years.
November 5th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
There’s one thing McDonnell could do that would be both helpful, and more or less in keeping with conservative principles. And that is to devolve greater authority to local governments.
Can’t remember the exact rules, since I’m over a decade removed from being a Virginia resident, but in Virginia, localities have very limited powers, and especially very few options with respect to raising revenue. Want to raise the sales tax by a penny? Got to get Richmond’s approval. And so forth.
Unshackling local governments would give the city of Alexandria, and Fairfax and Arlington counties, the power to solve more of their own problems without any cost to the residents of, say, Dinwiddie County.
My guess is that if McDonnell pushed for this, the legislature would tell him where to stick it: for some reason, Virginia conservatives seem to believe specifically in states’ rights - over and against both the Federal government and local government.
But maybe if a conservative like McDonnell were the one selling this idea - especially as an alternative to raising taxes statewide - he might just get some traction. You never know.