Taxes are likely to rise in Virginia, if the Democrats win the election being held this Tuesday.
Last May, Virginia’s Republican Governor, Glenn Youngkin, vetoed a bill to allow all counties to raise the sales tax by 1%. Virginia’s Democratic legislature tried to override his veto, but fell short of the two-thirds vote needed to do so, in a 25-to-15 vote in the state senate. Analysts said most local governments would have raised their sales tax had the bill become law. That’s because local sales taxes are paid partly by non-residents, giving municipalities an incentive to tax each other’s citizens by raising the sales tax. If a municipality raises its local sales tax, it keeps all of the revenue, but its residents don’t pay all of the cost — people from outside the municipality who can’t vote against the tax do.
If it had become law, taxes would have risen further in Virginia, a state that already had higher-than-average tax rates, according to the Tax Foundation.
Now, Democrats are favored to win the governor’s race in Virginia, although there is a very close race for state attorney general, and several state legislative races will be very close. The Real Clear Politics polling average shows the Democratic candidate for governor leading by a comfortable 9%, while Republican attorney general Jason Miyares is barely ahead of his Democratic challenger, leading Democrat Jay Jones by a razor-thin 1.6% margin. The Democrats’ lead in the governor’s race is fueled by the deep unpopularity in Virginia of Donald Trump.
Without a Republican governor to veto legislation authorizing increases in the sales tax, the sales-tax increase measure is almost certain to become law. Democrats uniformly supported the sales-tax-increase bill in 2024. Analysts expect the Democrats to gain more seats in the Virginia House of Delegates this election. That will enable tax increases to pass the legislature by an even bigger margin.
In neighboring Maryland, the replacement of a Republican governor with a Democratic governor led to tax increases enacted by the state’s Democratic legislature and signed into law by the Democratic governor. That included capital gains tax hikes, income tax hikes on higher-income households, and onerous new technology and bullion taxes that drove businesses out of the state (including a business owned by a Maryland Democratic legislator).
In Virginia, Democratic legislators have proposed raising taxes from 5.75% to 7% or 10% for high-income households.
A Democratic victory could also lead to costly new regulations, the way red tape in Democratic Maryland is increasing. Realtors say Maryland’s new energy regulations will increase the cost of housing for many tenants, by up to $400 per month.
By contrast, Youngkin’s regulatory reforms reduced the cost of building a house in Virginia by $24,000 on average, according to the National Review. It says that Governor Youngkin’s regulatory reforms have saved Virginians $1.2 billion per year and eliminated 11 million unnecessary words from state regulatory documents.
8 comments
Tax me harder daddy
When, not if. Running candidates who are at best mediocre and at worse out-of-step with major Republican constituencies is not a winning strategy for Republicans in Virginia. Even with exceptional candidates it is hard. But to think that we can shape society via politics, which out of necessity must follow the culture to win, is a bit insane. We must do our duty as a citizen and participate, but shaping society toward true ideas has always been the calling of the churches. Sadly few Christians, and even less pastors, understand they have that role. Most think truth should be kept in the churches. Often the framers are called the founders, yet they are not the founders and the British understood that, which is why they most feared what they termed The Black Robe Regiment. It was centuries of Christian teachings that created a people who could handle self-government, because they governed themselves and so did not need a nanny state to keep them fed, clothed, and out of trouble. So, if we want VA to be healthy and strong, we have to get back to plan A, making disciples who understand and apply Biblical principles to all areas of life and society.
Just after WW1, socialism began its ascent in the USA. There were large crowds extolling its virtues and praising the likes of Mussolini and Hitler. A depression hit in 1929, and the Americans responded by electing FDR, who filled his administration with socialists and communists. The result was that the depression was extended worldwide throughout the 1930s. WW2 broke out in the late 1930s and extended throughout half of the 1940s. Following WW2, socialism was rejected in the USA, but people forget or the younger generation has no experience with it. Apparently, we are about to revisit the horrors of collectivist tyranny.
The Mayflower Compact was the first communist, Communalist, doctrine to land on the shores of colonial America. It failed because it caused massive inequality. Interestingly, women were the first to rebel against communalism because it caused massive disruptiions within and between households. The Mayflower leaders responded by giving each family acreage to do with as they wished. Thus you have the start of the free enterprise system as industrious people used the land to their advantage. Europeans, hearing about what is now known as the free enterprise system, flocked to America. They had lived under the rule of kings, just a different type of tyranny.
Democrat socialists and communists like Crittenden are cheering the results not realizing that they are signing their own and the nation’s death warrants.
“Socialism is when the government does things, the more things the government does, the socialister it is” – Karl Marx
To each according to his need. From each according to his skill and ability. The Marxist way.
Here are a few more points for you losers to consider.
Not only did Democrats gain over 60 seats in the House of Delegates — you need to look at historic voting results where you will find that in every locality that went Red last night, the percentage of Democratic votes was UP over historic levels by 4 to 11 %, which helps explain the Democratic blow-out. That’s right — even though a county voted Republican, the % of Democratic votes was up by 4 to 11%.
In Mississippi — that’s as in MISSISSIPPI — three long-serving Republicans were defeated by Democrats in districts where the majority of voters are White!!! The victorious Democrats campaigned against TRUMP.
One of the first moves by the VA General Assembly will be to gerrymander the hell out of the Commonwealth and get rid of Wittman and Kiggans.
Trump is a huge millstone around your necks, so, my advice to you is: KEEP ON SUPPORTING TRUMP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
At 9:20 pm, election night the results are in: Spanberger, Hashmi, and Jones win gov, lt gov, and atty gen (not even close); Democrats pick up 61 House of Delegates seats.
I urge all you MAGAts — please do not go out and slash your wrists. Governor Spanberger will let you keep your horses for the spring plowing.
On Monday night, Nov 3, Trump held a “tele-rally” that almost no one watched. He did not mention Winsome Earle-Sears once . . . not one time. He praised Miyares and that was that.