Transportation is critical to the economy and to our overall quality of life in communities across Virginia. Unfortunately, many of our state legislators, including Speaker Bill Howell, have engaged in a shell game for years, using transportation to justify raising our taxes, only to squander our money as soon as we turn our backs.
Now it gets worse. After wasting money that should have funded transportation following their massive 2013 tax hike, their new plan will double tax us by potentially turning our interstates and highways into toll roads.They always need more money despite having doubled Virginia’s budget in the last decade.
Speaker Howell and his chief lieutenant, Appropriations Chairman Chris Jones, are well on their way to fundamentally changing transportation policy in Virginia by rushing more legislation through Virginia’s House of Delegates for another giant cash grab through House Bill 1887 – Chief Patron Delegate S. Chris Jones.
You can do something about this but you must act today!
HB 1887 will be voted on today, and if it becomes law, it will allow transformation of many of Virginia’s highways and interstates into privately managed toll roads—taxing you to access the roads.
Three highly respected Northern Virginia Republican Delegates – Hugo, LeMunyon and LaRock – have already voted no to this bill out of committee.
The Washington Post recently wrote about the plan for I-66 inside the Beltway.
Like the tolled lanes that just opened on I-95 in Northern Virginia, all the risk will be upon Virginians—meaning if the tolls do not reach the agreed upon revenue levels, then taxpayers must kick in money to bail out the private company managing the road. This type of Solyndra-style deal is the last thing we need.
Worse, this bill puts the state’s share of revenue from tolls into a revolving fund, meaning the tolls you pay won’t actually be tied to the maintenance of the road you are using. The money can be spent however politicians in Richmond determine best. And in the meantime, a company located in another country – Transurban – controls our roads that we have already paid for with our hard earned dollars.
To the same end, the legislation creates a slush fund for the Governor to spend without oversight or accountability, fueling pet projects like Speaker Howell’s $1.4 billion road-to-nowhere alternative Route 460 project. $300 million has already been spent without one bit of dirt being turned, and it could cost up to $900 million just to cancel the project. No private company would invest in the project because it clearly was a boondoggle.
Speaker Howell’s 2013 tax hike and this proposal to transform Virginia’s highways are not only bad policy, they are policies that make life tougher on lower and middle income families. Sales tax increases, gas tax increases and tolls all stretch family budgets.
Speaker Howell is doing this piece by piece thinking we are too stupid to figure it out. Yesterday the General Assembly passed House Bill 1784 which lays the groundwork for massive rail projects by emphasizing the General Assembly’s intent to promote rail.
Today’s bill moves our entire transportation policy to toll roads and rail. It takes money from the transportation fund and moves it to a number of sub-funds with no real metrics attached to it, just blanket authorization. Currently, funds can only be obligated for projects for up to 6 years. HB1887 authorizes obligations of funds as far into the future as the Governor or the House Appropriations Chairman deems necessary, tying the hands of future Governors and General Assemblies.
They want to make sure their pet projects are protected without our input.
There’s even more bad news in this bill, as it fundamentally changes policy for local road projects too. HB1887 authorizes the Commonwealth Transportation Board to fund local projects with money from the Virginia Transportation Infrastructure Bank. Localities will have to apply to the CTB for funds to fix local roads, but in doing so, this bill adds strings: it will require the localities to charge a toll for that road project.
Have you had enough? I am tired of constant assaults on our liberty by our own government. What’s even worse they pass this legislation so quickly the people have no time to truly grasp the consequences of these new tax and toll policies until it’s too late. We have Republican leaders who are abusing their power — like Speaker Bill Howell who is at the helm — ensuring this double taxing legislation passes!
I encourage you to call your Delegate and Senator NOW as soon as possible and tell them to reject this legislation that double taxes us and turns our roads over to private companies while placing all of the financial risk on Virginians. They are voting on it today.
Instead of corrupt tax-hiking deals between big government and big business under the guise of transportation funding, we need sensible transportation reforms that will actually produce results:
- We need to enact an amendment to Virginia’s Constitution to protect transportation funding from being diverted to grow government and fund pet projects.
- We need a true prioritization of projects on a statewide basis, and transportation formulas need to be adjusted to provide funding on the basis of the number of vehicles traveling a road, not the number of miles of roads.
Virginians are overtaxed. More tolls and taxes are bad for Virginia families and bad for our economy. Instead of electing politicians who hike our taxes, it’s time to elect leaders with a vision for Virginia’s future and the determination to get results.
7 comments
Susan Stimpson is the most formidable candidate Howell’s had since he was first elected. Howell is a RINO who controls all the strings in Richmond. You want to change Richmond, change the snake’s head.
I’m word searching “toll” on HB1887, and I don’t see any significant changes?
Please cite the portions that introduce tolls/tolling?
https://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?151+ful+HB1887EH1
One wonders how much money these private road building entities are going to kickback to the members of Virginia government in “fake” gifts, campaign donations, and PAC money? How much ransom are they paying for this bill?
Others companies see how successful Dominion Virginia Power is at purchasing legislation, and they too want in on the game! All legal of course.
Funding roads is a fundamental obligation of the state government to its citizens. As we have learned here in Loudoun County, where we have a $5/one-way private toll road cutting through the middle of the County, a private owner’s interests are not the community’s interests. Here, if you drive a single exit, you still have to pay several dollars (it isn’t prorated). This has pushed traffic onto public roads causing increased congestion. But there is nothing we can do about it. The road is private property.
What the heck did we just get a massive transportation tax from Bill Howell for?!!? If we need a road, then use those funds to build it. But that is logical, and we all know that Howell is a crony capitalist.
TRANSURBAN! You’ve got be kidding me. The Pocahontas Parkway they were running here in Virginia just went bankrupt a couple of years ago and was turned over to its creditors (i.e. foreclosed upon).
So, if they build it and it works out, they get to keep the profits
But, if they build it and it fails, the taxpayer picks up the tab.
Private profits, public debt.
Ms. Stimpson, please clean Bill Howell’s clock in the primary. We can’t get rid of that enemy of the state soon enough. Unfortunately, these crony capitalists in Richmond are like the multi-headed hydra. Kill off one head and another appears.
Keep up the good fight.
I trust Del. LaRock when it comes to ANY transportation issue above the next ten in line. He applies intelligent common sense analysis to this issue.
I agree this is LaRock’s area of expertise in spades but the most disturbing issue here is using transportation tax levies as your personal bank account for funding what every pet project you desire, though it may have never been in plan, that’s dishonest by any definition. If your flash back to when this transportation plan was being hyped to the Virginia taxpayer you may recall this potential issue was raised by many in opposition to its enactment. They were summarily dismissed by Howell and his cronies as naysayers and uninformed critics regarding the state’s budgetary process and lectured on how this was not a feasible possibility. Well a year later and here we are at the very point many of us believed we would arrive at when this thing was steamrolled through the legislature. If this is leadership its not the kind most people would feel comfortable with if they completely grasped the facts. Its past time for Howell to go.
Great material. Well researched.