A Lesson in Business for the Assembly

The News & Advance
Published: September 17, 2008

The ears of Virginia legislators should have been burning last week when a nonpartisan, pro-business group revealed its annual assessment of their labors during the 2008 General Assembly session.

Virginia FREE deducted 20 points from every legislator’s 2008 business rating because of the legislature’s failure to provide new money for state transportation needs.

In a sharply worded commentary introducing the 24-page scorecard, the business organization declared that partisan brinkmanship doomed the special session called by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine in late June and July before it ever began.

“We have not only a shortage of transportation dollars, but also a shortage of courage and leadership needed to elevate good governance above short-term partisan gain,” the report’s preamble said.

The nonpartisan group did not single out one party or the other, but it was the tax-averse Republican majority in the House of Delegates that refused to vote in favor of any increase in fees or taxes that the governor and a majority of the Senate had put on the table.

The 2007 session assembled what the organization called an “imperfect consensus” that relied on heavy fines for abusive drivers and regional taxes assessed by unelected local commissions. That package unraveled when lawmakers repealed the fines for abusive drivers because they weren’t producing the revenues anticipated and because they did not apply to out-of-state drivers.

The crowning blow to the transportation funding package came last February when the Virginia Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional to allow unelected commissions to raise taxes.

That took the lawmakers back to where they were in 2006 with a shortfall of more than $1 billion in annual needs for highway maintenance.

As Virginia FREE put it, “This left Virginia in dire need of money for routine maintenance and new construction of highways, bridges, transit and rail, especially in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads, two vital economic engines benefiting the entire Commonwealth.”

And why are new roads and the maintenance of existing ones so important to the future of Virginia? The business group reminded the legislators in no uncertain terms.

“Business location, expansion, retention and existing operations depend heavily on Virginia’s transportation systems. Companies need a seamless system of highways, mass transit, railroads, seaports and airports to conduct business efficiently, to grow, to prosper and to create jobs. The efficient movement of people, goods and services is essential to sustain our favorable business environment, continued economic growth, public safety and Virginia’s enviable quality of life.”

The scorecard’s preamble concluded that there has been “an utter failure by elected officials to tackle the transportation challenge and put in place innovative, forward-looking policies that will carry Virginia forward to a prosperous future.”

The business group added that businesses in Virginia “do not see transportation solutions as partisan issues. They are Virginia issues. They are pressing business issues. They require hard work and a spirit of compromise. That is what Virginia expects and deserves from her elected officials.”

Is anyone on the Republican side of the aisle in the House of Delegates listening to what one of Virginia’s premier business groups has to say about the importance of transportation to the state — and to business?