The Jefferson Journal
Commentary
(This article first ran in the Feb issue of Surface Transportation Innovations, a publication ofthe Reason Foundation. As Virginia contemplates “rapid rail” from Roanoke and Richmond to Washington DC, this article is important.) Five years ago, Congress enacted the Passenger Rail Investment & Improvement Act (PRIIA) of 2008, a five-year...
In his first address as Secretary of State, John Kerry said we must safeguard “the most sacred trust” we owe to our children and grandchildren: “an environment not ravaged by rising seas, deadly super-storms, devastating droughts, and the other hallmarks of a dramatically changing climate.” Even the Intergovernmental Panel on...
In a March 10th New York Times column, Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman wrote, “we do not, repeat do not, face any kind of deficit crisis either now or for years to come.” Citing recent projections from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Krugman insisted that “the case for making the...
For reasons rooted in local identity and entrenched political interest, Virginians are unlikely to consolidate their local governments into units aligned with the metropolitan regions they serve. But it is not impossible to imagine governments partnering regionally on specific projects. A new study by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review...
For the last several years President Obama has frequently called for a $50 billion one-time infrastructure program to deal with America’s “crumbling” highways and bridges, a call he repeated in his Feb. 12th State of the Union address. Just a week before, outgoing Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood said that...
(This column first ran in the Richmond Times Dispatch on March 4, 2013.) Gross regional product in the Richmond metro area grew 2.9 percent in 2011, according to newly released figures from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. That ranks the region as the 208th fastest growing among 366 metropolitan...
As the White House this week politicized the sequester cuts amounting to $85 billion in lower federal spending, a recent GAO (Government Accountability Office) study identified “more than 1,362 duplicative programs accounting for at least $364.5 billion in federal spending every single year…” claims Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., in a...
Average planetary temperatures haven’t budged in 16 years. Hurricanes and strong tornadoes are at or near their lowest ebb in decades. Global sea ice is back to normal, Arctic ice is nearly normal, and the Antarctic icepack continues to grow. The rate of sea level rise remains what it was...
A new Education Improvement Scholarships Tax Credit law allows individual and corporate donors to take a 65 percent state tax credit on their charitable donation to qualified scholarship foundations — on top of the current state and federal tax deduction. Those scholarship foundations, in turn, provide scholarships for the children...
Something unusual happened in the Virginia General Assembly the other week: A bipartisan vote on a controversial issue.Governor Bob McDonnell’s Opportunity Educational Institution legislation crafts a system for taking over consistently failing public schools. McDonnell’s legislation essentially creates a new school division, transferring unaccredited schools from their local school system...