The Worst of All Conceivable Solutions

After studying transportation for more than a year, Virginia’s state Senate has passed one of the most atrocious pieces of legislation in recent history. The Senate transportation package, which passed 34 to 6 yesterday, did not have one redeeming virtue. Not one. It’s a transportation plan utterly so devoid of merit that only Virginia’s editorial writers could love it.

Let’s grant the Senate the charitable assumption that the solution to solving Virginia’s broken transportation system is to indiscriminately pour more money into it. Even by that standard, the legislation is a loser. According to Virginia Department of Transportation figures – the same figures used to justify a tax increase – the state will need $108 billion in new revenue to pursue a Business As Usual transportation policy over the next 20 years. That averages out to $5.4 billion yearly. By providing less than one-fifth that amount, the legislation falls far short. The Senate proposes no other solution for covering that gap.

But that’s only the first of the legislation’s many failings. The logical way to raise revenue would be to raise the retail gasoline tax, on the grounds that raising the cost of driving would have the salutary effect of encouraging people to drive less and reduce the stress on state roads. Instead, the Senate proposes collecting $210 million by increasing the tax on real estate transactions. Why the Senate chose not to raise taxes on, say, hair stylists or the sale of cucumbers as well, I can’t begin to imagine. The Senate also would raise the motor vehicle sales tax by three quarters of a percent, which would achieve the remarkable result of increasing the cost of car ownership without encouraging anyone to drive less!

Throw in a $10 registration fee and a tiny increase on the sale of diesel fuels, and there you have it. Oh, I nearly forgot the most ludicrous proposal of all: Raising $570 million a year by imposing a 5-percent wholesale tax on gasoline. Virginia’s esteemed Senators must think voters must be pretty stupid to see that as any less onerous than a tax on retail sales. But just in case motorists do see through the subterfuge, the Senate decided to “soften the blow,” in the words of Jeff Schapiro in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, by allowing them to file their gasoline receipts twice a year for a rebate.

Here’s a piece of unsolicited advice to the genius who came up with that idea: Those who think it's too much trouble to file -- half of all Virginians, according to your estimates -- will curse you. Even those who do file their receipts will curse you -- twice a year -- for putting them through that nonsense in the first place!

But the thorough-going abdication of common sense does not stop there. Unless it plans to introduce companion legislation not mentioned in the press accounts, the Senate does absolutely nothing to address the transportation-land use connection. Gov. Timothy Kaine has advanced a proposal. So has the House. But the Senate has nothing to say on the subject.

Neither does the Senate consider any of the many alternative transportation strategies that have been articulated: telework, traffic-demand management, traffic-light synchronization, Bus Rapid Transit and many, many more. The philosophy of the Senate can be summarized thusly: Don’t reform land use. Don’t change VDOT. Don’t try anything new. Don't change anything about transportation policy except the amount of money dumped into it. Tax, tax, pave, pave. Even the Road Builders lobby would be embarrassed to advance a legislative agenda so backward!

The Senate package is, arguably, the most reactionary legislation to come down the pike since the days of Massive Resistance. Indeed, massive resistance – as in, resistance to change – is an apt description of what the Senate has wrought. If Virginia voters had any sense, they would vote 34 senators out of office in two years -- if they didn't laugh them out first.

(Note to readers: I have deleted the concluding paragraph of this post on the grounds that it did not meet the editorial standards of the Road to Ruin blog. In my zeal, I resorted to name calling of those who disagreed with me. Insults, even if obviously hyperbolic, are not arguments; they only diminish from arguments. I apologize to anyone who took offense.)