On Friday, after skirting the topic in a major address to a business conference in Williamsburg, Governor Ralph Northam told a reporter that “he’s planning to ask the General Assembly to tackle business tax reform,” adding it would be “comprehensive.” The reporter asked about it because of other comments made...
Late to the party to rebuild and modernize its Interstates, the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) has developed a toll-based plan to improve I-81, a major north-south truck route. Understandably, the state wants to lay out a vision that can be implemented in the near future. But this plan is...
Smithfield and its subsidiary, Murphy-Brown, have won an important First Amendment gag order case in the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Smithfield’s subsidiary has lost 3 times in U.S. District Court. On April 26, 2018, a jury ruled Smithfield and its subsidiary were liable for $50 million to ten...
The unwritten rule seems to be that each successive climate report and news release must be more scarifying than any predecessors, especially during the run-up to international conferences. Thus Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report 15 claims governments worldwide must make “unprecedented changes in all aspects of society,” spend...
A new report from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) claims humans have killed more than half the all the wildlife in the world since 1970. The report attracted media mass attention, though if you read the entire 145-page essay, it doesn’t really say that, much less prove it. More ironic,...
“I’m not going to get into it unless anybody wants me to.” So said Kristin Collins, policy development director for the Virginia Department of Taxation, as she neared the end of her November 19 slide presentation on federal tax conformity and its impact on Virginia state taxes. The final handful...
In the wake of the November 6th election results, there is renewed talk of a national infrastructure bill. The day after the election, likely House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D, CA) announced that major infrastructure legislation will be high on the Democrats’ 2019 agenda. She was seconded by the expected chairman...
Environmental groups are again suing EPA over its decision that air emissions from Concentrated Animal feeding operations (CAFOs) do not need to be reported to the public under federal statute. EPA’s Emergency Preparedness and Community Right-To-Know Act (EPCRA) requires that air emissions (toxic & hazardous) of a certain quantity be...
Thanksgiving is a good time to express our sincere gratitude that we no longer “enjoy” the “simpler life of yesteryear.” As my grandmother said, “The only good thing about the good old days is that they’re gone.” For countless millennia, mankind lived on a precipice, in hunter-gatherer, subsistence farmer and...
New Jefferson Commentaries Make Case for Tax Reform
In two new Thomas Jefferson Institute commentaries published on opposite sides of the state, Institute scholars make the case for tax reform in Virginia. In a commentary originally published in the Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, Institute president Michael W. Thompson points out that the new “tax windfall” coming to Virginia as...