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COLGAN: YOUR TAXES ARE TOO LOW
By Greg L | 27 July 2006 | 29th VA Senate | 4 Comments
Senator Charles Colgan (D-29th) gave an interview to the Gainesville Times which was posted today, in which he outlined his vision for fiscal discipline for Virginia. In that interview, he mentioned eight different proposals to raise taxes, as well as defended his record as one of the biggest pork barrel spenders in the Virginia legislature. This interview is absolutely stunning in it’s audacity.
Does Northern Virginia get it’s fair share under the twenty year old transportation funding plan?
“It’s a fair system,” he added, “Whether you like it or not…That’s pretty darn good,” he said. “That’s a very good deal for us.”
Actually, I don’t like it one bit, and it’s a bad deal that Northern Virginia only gets 18% of state transportation funding despite contributing about 40% of the state’s revenues. Now how about how he is one of the primary legislators in proposing spending on non-state entities?
Charges of pork-barrel spending and earmarking are much to the state senator’s delight. The usually soft-spoken grandfather slammed his hands down and raised his voice like a carnival auctioneer as he described “bringing home the bacon” as what he was hired to do.
“That’s what the people ask me to do! When I went to Richmond, you know how much we were getting for primary roads a year? Five-million bucks. What are we getting now? One-hundred-seventy-five million. By God, if we’re not getting our fair share, I’m not doing my job!”
Well, seeing that in this session he requested funding for non-transportation projects such as the Manassas Museum, the Brentsville Courthouse and the Flory Small Business Center, and not a penny for transportation projects, this is a clear attempt to mischaraterize his record. Colgan is absolutely not fighting for transportation dollars, he’s opposing reasonable attempts to update the outdated transportation funding formula to reflect changes in demographics that have occurred over the past twenty years. He’s the local king of porkbarrel spending hoping that it’ll buy him a few votes in the next election.
Perhaps best was Colgan’s long and varied descriptions of how he would like to raise taxes, despite a current budget surplus of over a billion dollars that Senator Colgan refuses to dedicate to transportation. From eliminating the reductions in the hated “car tax”, to increasing the sales tax, to increasing the gas tax, the real estate transfer fees, real estate taxes, adding tolls on roads, “regional” tax authorities controlled by Richmond, unspecified levies on the “private sector”, and on and on, Colgan’s career has been one of proposing out of control spending, and he now is focused on raising taxes in order to pay for it. I can’t believe he’s actually saying this stuff.
Senator Colgan, I think it’s a good time to retire.
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When he first went to Richmond, it was by horse-drawn carriage. Five million dollars meant something back then.
I presume that our friend Mr. FitzSimmonds will be ramming that “NoVA gets its fair share” down Colgan’s throat next year. Talk about out of touch!
I t would be great if there were a Republican althernative. Any sense that we’ll have a viable candidate? Too early to tell, I guess.
Wouldn’t it be great if people who pretended to be Republicans actually SUPPORTED Republicans and Republican positions. We’ve already got “a Republican alternative.” Maybe we’ll have more.