The Special Session of the Virginia General Assembly ended this morning with no action on Virginia's transportation funding crisis. Last month VDOT announced that a short-fall of $1.1 Billion dollars meant that road construction in the state would be curtailed. That included new lanes to RMH on Port Republic Rd, and the Southeast Connector.
The Governor said, "I don't think I've ever seen a group of people work so hard to do nothing."
Kaine had proposed a package of statewide tax and fee increases, largely to address a maintenance funding shortfall that is forcing the state to divert money from its road construction budget to cover the gap. He also wanted regional tax increases for Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads to replace previous funding plans that were invalidated by the Virginia Supreme Court.The Republican controlled House rejected Kaine's proposal and countered with:
...chirp, chirp....nothing.So House Democrats stepped in with an alternative plan:
The bill (Senate Bill 6009) still called for increases in the retail sales tax and vehicle sales and rental taxes and a reduction in the sales tax on groceries, making it an impossible sell to most House Republicans.But that was also defeated. There will be no solution to the transportation funding crisis this year.
Thanks for Nothing Delegates!
4 comments:
Oh, and Delegate Saxman, I agree with fellow delegate Brian Moran when he said today, "We are not going to find funding for transportation at the bottom of the ocean."
(HB 6006 (defeated by the Senate) would have dedicated revenue from the leasing of offshore areas for oil and natural gas drilling to transportation projects.)
Now get to work Chris. Find us some real money to fund transportation in Virginia. No more pie-in-the-sky! Or is that pie in the ocean?
Chris sells water and BS.
House Repubs overplayed their hand. Virginians wanted solutions for the here and now. 2009 isn't so far off as to dim the memory. The something for nothing party's promises are fading fast.
Yeah Chris, get to work while the CONGRESS sits on it's hands until they can blame another president for todays problems. What a bunch of jerks. Let's just sit here and not worry about all the problems we were supposed to fix once we took control...we're getting paid, so SCREW the public that was stupid enough to believe we would do anything to make the country a better place for the WORKING CLASS poor. F THEM ANYWAY...right guys...right.
Oh yeah, and thanks Jesse Jackson, way to show the world just how to support a brother...even if you want to cut his chances...HA HA HA
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