The Jefferson Journal
Commentary
Twenty-eight years after Governor Doug Wilder signed it into law, the Virginia General Assembly lifted the ban on public sector collective bargaining. As of May 1st, localities in Virginia could give government unions a monopoly to represent all employees at a particular worksite. However, the law passed in Richmond is unique from...
Despite the stunning and rapid success of the vaccines in arresting the spread of COVID-19, if you enter a Virginia workplace you go back in time to the pre-vaccine era of doubt and fear. Virginia acted in haste in adopting permanent workplace rules related to COVID 19. Now that the...
One of the big financial winners with the May 1 Virginia minimum wage increase is the state itself, because the entire raise is subject to a 5 percent state income tax. With its low standard deduction and personal exemption amounts, Virginia squeezes income tax out of even its lowest wage...
In mid-April, the City of Alexandria passed an ordinance allowing government unions to bargain with the city. Unfortunately, many of the ordinance’s provisions are lopsided: the ordinance grants special advantages for government unions to easily organize public employees and traps workers into paying dues. Alexandria’s lopsided ordinance Alexandria’s ordinance makes...
Virginia is far more tax friendly to established businesses than it is to new ones. That is one major conclusion of a major state-by-state business tax comparison released Wednesday (here) by the Tax Foundation and KPMG LLC. In neighboring North Carolina, on the other hand, the tax structure encourages new...
With Virginia’s fiscal year now three-quarters complete, and basically one year since the depths of the COVID-19 recession, state tax revenues are soaring. Despite reports that the boom results from the economic rebound, it remains clear that changes in tax policy under Governor Ralph Northam are the major driver. Usually...