As we enter the 2011 commonwealth election cycle, there are a number of proposals coming from Republican sources that rely on bonds to pay for needed improvements to our infrastructure. The problem with that is the fact the none of these bonds come with an attendant new source of funding to service them in the long-term. In essence, these proposals put major new expenditures on Virginia’s state credit card, leaving us with the bill after the Governor (and others) leave office.

The issue of addressing Virginia’s (and Loudoun’s) needs is not one of financing, but one of funding.

Governor McDonnell’s proposal is perhaps the most prominent.

As part of his budget amendments presented in Richmond in December, McDonnell said he wants to help pay for $4 billion in new transportation spending by issuing $3 billion in bonds. Pulling in more money for road improvements is a major component of the governor’s initiatives for the upcoming 2011 legislative session, which starts Jan. 12. – The Loudoun Times-Mirror

The Loudoun Times gets it right in using the language “pulling in more money” rather than saying “finding new money.” The money the governor proposes to use is already in the Commonwealth’s financing plan for the long-term. He just wants to spend all of it, now. He wants to max out the state credit card on the first of the month. Which begs the question, how will we finance needed improvements in three or five years, when those bonds were already issued?

Follow below for a rough lesson in fiscal policy.  A similar argument is advanced by Leesburg Councilmember Ken Reid, in terms of the Silver Line and the Dulles toll Road.

Therefore, I have been proposing to several Fairfax and Loudoun supervisors, and state officials, to have the state take back the Dulles Rail project from the Airports Authority, use state-backed bonds for construction and apply for federal mass transit New Starts funding for Phase II. – Ken Reid, Leesburg Patch

Leaving aside for the moment the irony of Council member Reid, who voted against essential maintenance of roads in Leesburg, advocating for more local control of the most significant transportation improvement in our region’s history, Reid’s “use state-backed bonds” plan is a dead letter from the start. The Governor’s plan already uses up all the state’s debt capacity. Furthermore, even if those bonds were available to apply to the Silver Line, getting Assembly buy-in for allocating them in that manner is no slam-dunk. And this is ignoring the fact that the cost of issuing and maintaining bonds (interest rates) is getting higher, not lower, for local governments.

Ultimately, however, the procedural niceties of using bonds pale in comparison with the risks to our Commonwealth’s future of issuing bonds without an attendant funding source to service them.

When we issue bonds, we need to pay them down, and pay the interest on them, every year. That money comes directly out of general (tax, fees, etc.) revenues. If we issue more debt without finding a way to also increase general revenues, we must, necessarily, allocate more future revenues from a fixed pot to debt service. When we do that, we leave ourselves less money to maintain our roads in the future. The money we could use in 2014 to pay for road maintenance and construction would have to go to servicing the bonds issued in 2011. Yes, issuing bonds so we will have more money for roads today will actually leave us with far less (not more) money for roads tomorrow!

The Governor and Mr. Reid’s proposals boil down to “let’s get another credit card, and max that one out.” Any financial advisor, or high-school student with a job and a credit card, can tell you that you don’t get a new credit card unless you have gotten a raise. Well, the Governor and Mr. Reid have proposed no way to give the state coffers a raise. Maxing out the state’s debt today is not just imprudent, it is fiscally reckless.

Virginia has a long, and worthy, tradition of fiscal astuteness. The last time we tried a financing-without-funding scheme, we were promised “no car tax.”

How did that work out?

It is up to the people of Virginia, and Loudoun, to be the parents in this analogy. we must send a message to Mr. McDonnell and his allies like Mr. Reid, that new debt without new funding sources is irresponsible. It puts our commonwealth’s future at risk for the sake of a political goal today.

Virginia is better than that. Virginia deserves better from our elected officials, at every level.

[Update] – Sen. Herring makes this point in response to the Governor’s State of the Commonwealth address, demonstrating real leadership.

He also questioned the governor’s proposal to borrow $3 billion for transportation and transit projects. McDonnell’s plan doesn’t provide a long-term funding solution to fix northern Virginia’s congested roads, and it doesn’t provide a revenue stream to repay the bonds, Herring said.

“What are we going to do over the next 17 years while we’re repaying this? (McDonnell) kind of punted the problem to his successor instead of being bold and dealing with it now,” Herring said. “On the other hand, this is something I’m going to have to look at very carefully. We’ve got some of the worst traffic in the nation.” – Sen. Mark Herring

Gay marriage has directly impacted my life. Or, rather, the lack of gay marriage has directly impacted my life. My opinion of, and positions on, sexual orientation have been entirely determined by my life experiences. My case for gay marriage isn’t one of justice, or politics, or even progressive values. My case is one simply of compassion and personal opinion. But that’s enough for me.

Growing up, I knew no one who was gay. My experience of “gay” was limited to a childhood visit to Provincetown with my family when we were vacationing down the Cape. When I saw men walking hand-in-hand down the street, I didn’t understand what it was, and thought it a little creepy. To my parents’ credit, they simply told me that they “were gay” and that was that – no value judgment.

Fast forwarding a couple decades, the first gay person I ever knew who was out was a friend a few years behind me at UVA. And he did not fit the stereotype still in my head from my fuzzy childhood memories of that single Provincetown visit. He was an introverted techie who liked guns and was a member of the NRA. Finding out he was gay was a well-needed shock to my personal mindset. He and his boyfriend started dating not long after I started dating my wife, and we would all have a blast going out together.

A few years later, my wife and I were living in New York, and a neighbor in the building opened my mind even further. My friend there was out, proud and – to be frank – a little bit intimidating to my still-sheltered mindset on the question of sexual orientation. Thanks to the patience of this man, who took the time to befriend me and talk to me in spite of what I realize today was tactless ignorance in some of the things I said and did, I learned that, no, not all gay men wanted to date me. In fact, I was just plain unattractive to the majority of them, just like women. This friend, too, was soon in a long-term relationship. And those of us living in that building would all go out and have a great time with some frequency. When we moved to Virginia, my friends from New York came to visit us and enjoyed the hospitality of our back deck.By January 1, 2011, all of these gay friends of mine had broken up with their long-term boyfriends. To be frank, this kinda made me angry.

No one can know what goes on inside of another person’s relationship with their significant other. But at least in a heterosexual relationship throughout America, there’s a pattern that it can be assumed serves as the baseline: Dating, Engagement, Marriage. That pattern serves all couples as a framework for having hard conversations about kids, moving in together, and mutual expectations about “where a relationship is going.” The end-game expectation for the vast majority of people is marriage, and that expectation creates a context for having difficult conversations sooner rather than later, and ensuring that couples are on the same page about relationship direction, if not content at any given time.

My friends were denied that expectation. Though they may have individually harbored the expectation of marriage some day in the future, that expectation was personal and not the assumption of the society in which they lived. Their relationships were not afforded the same socially-sanctioned framework of emotional progression that is helpful in catalyzing critically important, if difficult, conversations between two people in love.

I make no judgements as to fault or blame in the dissolution of my friends’ long-term relationships. Every relationship is its own universe, for no one else to truly understand. Indeed, there is likely no fault or blame to be found. But I do judge a society which does not provide the same level of emotional support and expectations for their relationships as for mine. I find myself asking if my friends would have been in these relationships as long as they were if the expectation of engagement and marriage were assumed by all around them? Would they have gotten years of their lives back, years they could have had with another person who might have been walking a path of emotional development more similar to their own?

I don’t know.

But I do know that I don’t care if gay marriage is the Right Thing To Do as much as I care that recognizing the importance of marriage among any two adults in love helps those two adults develop that relationship. The recognition of a marriage is about compassion for me. It’s the recognition that these two people have picked each other, through thick and through thin, and that as their friends it’s our job to help them see themselves and each other through things.

It’s about commitment, and respecting commitment with legal, socially-sanctioned authority. It’s about making staying together the assumption, instead of the exception.

Needless to say, I pray that in my lifetime the blight upon our commonwealth constitution that was enacted in 2007 will be erased, and I aim to help make it so.

{Update} – Sen. Don McEachin has introduced a bill in the Assembly to prohibit employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. We should all support him in this affort.  

Here in Loudoun County, our Democratic Board of Supervisors has successfully balanced the budget throughout their term of office. In fact, in 2010 the County ended the fiscal year with a surplus.

In general, balancing government budgets is a good idea. That’s among the reasons I’m a proponent of a balanced Federal budget as a general goal. I believe in running deficits for specific emergencies (say, the greatest economic downturn since my grandmother was choosing between buying coffee or butter on her weekly grocery list), but in times of economic prosperity, the budget should aim towards balance.

Of course, I also agree with most Americans as to how that should be acheived.

Sixty-one percent of Americans polled would rather see taxes for the wealthy increased as a first step to tackling the deficit, the poll showed.

The next most popular way — chosen by 20 percent — was to cut defense spending.

Yes, I believe those who gained the most from our American system should pay their dues to keep that system sound and prosperous – just like 61% of my fellow citizens.  

Here’s your link(s) to the new year.

• What Math? – How Math is a grossly misunderstood subject.
• Obama Is Suffering Because Of His Achievements Not Despite Them – An interesting take on the hits the President has taken. Basically, a bunch of the country hates him because he is getting things done, and the frustration and anger gets worse among this population the more he accomplishes.
• Will The Fed’s Debit Fee Rule Help Merchants? – In another underreported positive consequence of having Democrats in charge when the financial reform bill was developed and passed, transaction fees for credit cards and debit cards will be going down, returning that money to merchants and consumers, who actually use and spend it, rather than aggregating it to the banks, who don’t.
• Jesus Is a Liberal Democrat – If you haven’t seen Stephen Colbert’s take on Christmas-season charity, you should.
• Incredible ISS Pictures – Astronaut Wheelock took these awesome pictures of the ISS during his journey there a few months ago. Amazing.
• New Rules For a New Senate – Sen. Merkley has a proposal to have the Senate actually debate on legislation instead of sitting around holding cloture votes. I know, shocking!
  

Leesburg District Supervisor Burk has a short and strong letter in the Loudoun Times-Mirror and on Leesburg Patch this week. In it, she briefly lays out the long-term economic case for managing our water quality in a natural manner, rather than through expensive industrial solutions.

Environmental protection and economic development are linked.  The protection of water resources is itself a powerful economic engine, which will allow businesses locating in Loudoun to be assured of a clean and reliable water supply.  Clean water frees up our limited funding resources, so therefore, will allow the County to spend money on other areas rather than on chemical refinement and increased infrastructure.

Storm water treatment alone is estimated to need millions of dollars in improvements to holding tanks and conveyance piping.  However, Jim Gordon of Westfair, Inc. suggests in his article, “Rich in Water,” that it is foolhardy to recommend spending that money since the structure sits unused most of the time.  Instead, the county should be examining green solutions such as engineered wetlands as bio-filters and holding ponds and other measures which could provide open space and other benefits like cleaner air, higher property values and reduced energy usage.  Some of these very solutions can be found in the water protection CPAM we currently are reviewing in the Transportation and Land Use Committee. – Supervisor Kelly Burk

Supervisor Burk has made a career out of this kind of long-term thinking an planning. Not only will bio-filters for our water help keep it cleaner, it will help the County economically by reducing the water management spending necessary in future years.

It is for reasons like this that the County has a comprehensive plan, and why I am glad Supervisor Burk is doing a great job managing to that plan.

Did you know that in the western part of vorthern Virginia (otherwise known as VA-10, until Redistricting changes it) has seen 76,000 jobs created or preserved thanks to actions taken by President Obama and the Democratic Congress of 2009-2010?

Did you know that over 11,000 neighbors have pre-existing conditions that inhibited their ability to get health insurance before the Affordable Health Care For America Act was passed?

How about the fact that some 3,800 teachers and educators had their jobs saved by Federal financing, funding which was implemented without adding to the deficit.

These are just a few of the things accomplished by President Obama and the Democratic Congress.

Something to remember when people wonder what President Obama has done since coming into office.

The roads network in and around Leesburg may seem confusing to many. For example, I cannot tell you the number of friends who call me when their GPS sends them up Catoctin Circle only to run into a barrier across the roadway. It is important to understand, however, that Leesburg’s roads aren’t confusing insomuch as they’re incomplete. Battlefield Parkway, Sycolin Flyover, Crosstrail Boulevard, Kincaid Boulevard, Russell Branch Parkway, these are only a handful of the roads that are partially complete, and in that partial state lead to some confused visitors to our wonderful Town.

Our Democratic officials have made completion of this critical road network a high priority. Supervisor Burk has been instrumental in fighting for and securing funding for the completion of Battlefield Parkway and the Sycolin Flyover throughout her career on both Council and the Board of Supervisors. Sen. Herring has been working diligently to find creative solutions in the face of Assembly inaction, witness his Rt. 7 Task Force, which has brought together a wide variety of stakeholders to set transportation priorities independent of political machinations. On Council, Dave Butler and Marty Martinez have helped to lead the fight for funding major road improvements (Sycolin Road) when the state abandoned their responsibilities to get local roads done.

In fact, every since I moved to Leesburg in 2006, the state has been failing in its transportation responsibilities (roads funding, transportation safety, Metro funding) and the Town of Leesburg, led by Democrats on the Council, has been stepping in to pick up the slack even while fighting ever harder for Richmond to do its job. That is real leadership on the most critical issue facing our Town. And it has been consistent for five years and across a half-dozen elected officials in a series of offices. That is what commitment to solving problems looks like. That is what governing, not complaining and dodging responsibility looks like.

Democrats simply get to work, and get things done. Sure, right now Leesburg’s roads are incomplete, but thanks to Sen. Herring, Supervisor Burk, Councilman Butler, Councilman Martinez, (and Mayor Umstattd!), they will get done, in spite of the procedural hurdles and roadblocks others may put in place.

(Crossposted from Leesburg Tomorrow. With a tip-o-the-hat to Leesburg Patch.)  

The New York Times has an awesome feature that provides a wealth of mapped census data on every tract in the U.S. You can slice and dice the maps by race, income, housing and education, just to name a few. When you do so, you learn a lot about where we live.

Like, for example, for what I’ll call “Greater Leesburg” the side of Rt 15 you live on matters quite a lot. If you live West of Rt. 15, your neighborhood’s average income probably went up since 2000. East of Rt. 15, it probably went down.

Blue sectors are areas where incomes declined, orange sectors are areas where incomes increased.And then compare that with the median income in 2010 map.

Deep green simply designates median household incomes over $100,000. In the case of Leesburg, the two light green sectors have median incomes of $73,431 (NE Leesburg) and $82,083 (SE Leesburg), respectively. All Leesburg sectors west of Rt. 15 have median incomes over $113,000.

Something to think about when people are crying socialism and fascism over a local tax bill that might be $100 higher next year. I rather doubt it’s the people in those blue / lighter green sectors – the ones who had lower median incomes, which then declined over the past 10 years – doing the screaming.

(Crossposted from Leesburg Tomorrow. With a tip-o-the-hat to OpenLeft.)