Below you will find facts, white papers, editorials, and supporting documents for important issues facing our Commonwealth.
Similarities and Discrepancies between House and Senate Budgets, Statement by Delegate Hamilton on House Floor (March 11, 2006)
Taxing, Spending, and Surpluses...the real facts:
- 2004 was the largest tax increase in Virginia history--$1.5 Billion. It was claimed that the tax increase was needed because the projected revenue growth was insufficient to meet the Commonwealth’s obligations.
- Since the $1.5 billion tax increase, state government revenue growth in 2004-2006 ALONE is up $2.9 billion OVER the original biennial forecast.
- The cumulative affect of Virginia’s growing economy means that what Gov. Warner and liberal Republicans claimed would only be $1.8 billion in project new revenue growth (and hence the need for a $1 billion tax increase), now appears to be closer to $4.7 billion in revenue growth—or an astounding 261% greater than the original biennial forecast.
- In less than a decade, the Virginia budget has more than DOUBLED, yet we are unable to provide basic services such as roads.
- If the tax and expenditure limit had also required tax refunds of all surplus dollars, taxpayers in Virginia would have been a cumulative $11.7 billion richer between 1992 and 2002.
- From 1990 to 2001, state spending grew at almost twice the rate of population growth plus inflation.
- In just 10 years, the two-year budget has grown from $34,751,813,652 to $62,724,671,691 – an 80.5 percent increase. The budget has grown an average of 16 percent each biennium over this time. At this rate the biennium budget will reach more than $110 billion in 2012-1014.
- The Commonwealth enjoyed a surplus at the end of the last fiscal year – June 30, 2004 -- of $324 million. While a portion of the surplus was, by law, channeled into the Rainy Day Fund, most of it was quickly allocated for additional state spending. Once again, the Commonwealth is faced with over a billion dollar surplus and additional spending will likely swallow the projected surplus whole.
Other sources of information for taxing, spending, and surpluses:
- Virginia Spending & Budget Reform, By Geoffrey Segal
- Program for Freedom, By John Toivonen
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2005 Virginia Piglet Book
The Book Richmond Doesn't Want You to Read, By The Virginia Institute for Public Policy and Citizens Against Government Waste - The Case for a Virginia Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, Virginia Institute for Public Policy, By Stephen Slivinski and Michael New
"A Tale of Two Budgets", By Keith Cummings (April 19, 2004)
This article discusses the success of TABOR in Colorado and contrasts it to the overspending in Virginia that resulted in a $1.4 tax increase. It points out that had Virginia had a TABOR law, the tax increase would not have been an option.
Voter Registration:
Earlier today, the Senate of Virginia gave final approval to SB313, which would require anyone seeking to register to vote at the Department of Motor Vehicles to affirm that they are a United States citizen. In addition, the legislation requires the Department of Motor Vehicles to share the name and address of any non citizen that attempts to register to vote with local registrars.
“I applaud the Senate’s passage of this legislation. This legislation will make it more difficult for illegal immigrants to register to vote in Virginia and provide a framework through which local registrars can check to make certain that illegal immigrants are not voting in local and statewide elections,” Lieutenant Governor Bolling said.
