Moonhowlings

From Roanoke.com:

When Virginians make purchases from Amazon.com they are not paying sales tax on that item (unless the consumer reports it on their taxes).

The Virginia General Assembly is considering a bill to change that.

The bill clarifies the current law, which says that any retailer with a physical presence in Virginia must collect and remit the 5 percent sales tax. Amazon, which has two facilities in Virginia,  hasn’t done that.

Apparently a 2007 ruling from the state tax department said that Amazon isn’t required to collect and remit sales tax because its facilities in Virginia don’t handle sales.

To add to the story, it was announced last month that Amazon would receive more than $4.3 million in financial aid and other incentives from the state to build two fulfillment centers outside of Richmond. Those centers would bring 1,350 jobs to the area. Amazon is investing $135 million in the buildings.

The retail community has voiced its displeasure with the loophole.

Read more…

Richmond Times Dispatch:

A bill that would require voters who show up at the polls without identification to cast provisional ballots is headed to the House floor after being lambasted by Democrats in a committee hearing Friday.

I have to disagree with the Democrats on this one.  I see absolutely nothing wrong with requiring voter ID.  There are very few rights that an American citizen has to start with.  Legal residents pretty much have the same rights we do other than voting in state and federal elections.  What happens if if a provisional vote is cast?  According to Delegate Albo:

“I’m trying to understand what the controversy of the bill is,” said Del. David B. Albo, R-Fairfax, noting that the provisional ballots are reviewed the day after the election by the local electoral board.

“If they are legit, they get counted,” Albo said. “If they’re not legit, they don’t get counted.”

On Friday afternoon, the ACLU decried the bill as a voter-suppression measure.

Anyone who lacks the proper ID should be able to get one without charge at DMV.  I am surprised that people can register to vote without some form of identification.   In this day and age, how does a person go anywhere or do anything without some form of ID?  Go Republicans!  This is one bill that makes sense in a sea of ones that don’t. 

Why is it that people who want to knock giant holes in abortion rights also want to knock out programs that exist to reduce unintended pregnancy?  Governor Robert McDonnell seems to be jumping on the stupidity bandwagon on this very subject.

According to the Washington Post:

McDonnell (R) wants to eliminate funding — $455,000 — for pregnancy prevention programs across the state that offer sex education and birth control to teenagers.

The Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative funds programs at schools and clinics in seven health districts, including Alexandria, which have the highest teenage pregnancy rates in the state. 
McDonnell’s administration says that the money is being discontinued because the initiative has not worked — and that the localities continue to experience pregnancy rates above the state average.

Although Virginia’s teen pregnancy rate is below the national average, 28 cities and counties are above the national average. In 2010, 10,970 teen pregnancies were reported in Virginia.

“The elimination of this long-standing health program could have serious consequences for women and girls’ health,” said Katherine Greenier, director of the Patricia M. Arnold Women’s Rights Project at the ACLU of Virginia. “Teens need good information and services to make informed, healthy choices. To ensure a decline in teen pregnancy rates continue we must provide teens with the necessary information, education and resources.’’

The program worked with 4,642 teens in fiscal 2010, including those at the Teen Wellness Center at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, which serves youths 12 to 19.

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Governor McDonald has targetted 2 critical areas for huge cash infusions:  VRS and higher education.  The governor plans to pump over 2.2 Billion into the state pension plan.  He also intends to spend over $200 million over the next two years in higher education.  Both areas are quickly approaching critical mass of not being able to do what they are intended to do.

According to hamptonroads.com:

Gov. Bob McDonnell’s announcements this week that he intends to pour $2.2 billion into the state pension system and boost spending for higher education by $200 million over the next two years are remarkable in two respects.

First, each implicitly acknowledges what nearly everyone in Virginia has long known but pretended isn’t true: The state’s failure to keep up with its obligations has reached a tipping point.

That much has been clear on any number of issues, perhaps none more than on transportation, which McDonnell has begun addressing through debt and public-private partnerships that ensure costly tolls on primary routes in South Hampton Roads.

But a study released earlier this week by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission underscored the bleak future of the Virginia Retirement System and the thousands of state workers counting on it.

The report explained the pension system’s condition as a consequence of multiple factors: the state’s pattern of contributing less each year than recommended, the economic downturn, increasing numbers of retirees and fewer workers taking their place. Analysts have calculated VRS is underfunded by nearly $20 billion.

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From the Richmond Times Dispatch:

Gov. Bob McDonnell on Monday unveiled a two-year, $84.9 billion spending plan that balances increases in transportation, higher education and the state’s pension system with $882 million in targeted reductions largely to Medicaid and public education funding. The proposed budget for July 1, 2012, through June 30, 2014, contains no tax increases but raises certain fees, including $10 million worth from the Department of Motor Vehicles.

If fees are increased at the DMV, doesn’t that really constitute a tax increase, by another name? 

Additionally, if items like Medicaid and public education get shortchanged, doesn’t that simply make local governments more strapped for much needed cash?  The real estate market has not rebounded all that much which is where the taxes come from in most localities.  There is also a movement under way to do away with the BPOL tax. 

Somehow politicians need to accept that we are not all that stupid.  We know that neither PWC nor Virginia can print money.  We know that a certain amount of money is needed for schools and for medicaid.  If the buck stops here, we either do without cops and other public safety services or we have 40 kids in a classroom. 

How do you cut back on Medicaid?  Where do you start?  Do you disqualify people?  I don’t know the answers.  It just seems that we are playing a shell game.  The fed cuts what it gives to the states.  The state cuts what it gives to the localities.  The localities have things they must do like provide medicaid, education money and public safety.  So we move it around. 

This is like the song, Where have all the Flowers Gone.  Gone to Flowers everyone.  McDonnell is on Fox News bragging that he has a surplus.  Not really.  How about that money owed to VRS that has not yet been repaid?  How about what is being shorted the localities?  How about the increased fees?  Just because we don’t call it a tax, is it still a tax?  Yup. 

I don’t really care.  I noticed a huge hit since the last time I renewed my license.  I expected it.  But lets call it what it is.  It’s a tax increase called a fee. 

From the Daily Press:

Republican U.S. Senate candidate Jaime Radtke and roughly 30 of her Tea Party supporters stood outside the Capitol on Wednesday to protest Radtke’s exclusion from a debate featuring former Govs. Tim Kaine and George Allen.

Democrat Kaine and Republican Allen were the only two candidates for the Senate seat being vacated by Jim Webb to meet the qualifications laid out by event organizers, the Associated Press and the Virginia Capitol Correspondents Association. To get an invite candidates must have averaged at least 15 percent in published polls and raised at least 20 percent of the amount of money raised by their party’s front runner.

In addition to Radtke, this left out Tim Donner, E.W. Jackson and David McCormick who are running for the GOP nomination, and Julien Modica and Courtney Lynch on the Democratic side.

Richmond Times Dispatch:

More than 60 percent of states pay their rank-and-file employees better than Virginia.

And when compared to the average salary among Virginia’s private-sector employees, the outlook for state government worker pay in Virginia is even worse, ranking 48th in the nation.

Those startling statistics come from a recently released report from the state’s Department of Human Resources Management using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The numbers are in stark contrast to this year’s analysis of compensation details for 104,552 state employees by the Richmond Times-Dispatch, which shows the average state salary of roughly $52,553 — nearly identical to the average salary in the state’s private sector.

Read more…

The Dailypress:

In the wake of the child sexual abuse scandal at Penn State the cost legendary football coachJoe Paterno his job, a Virginia legislator has filed two bills that add to the list of mandated reporters in the case of child abuse or neglect.

In HB3 and HB4 Del. Robert G. Marshall, R-Manassas, proposes adding coaches and athletic directors working at colleges or universities or for private sports organizations to be required to report any suspected abuse or neglect to their local Department of Social Services.

If passed these coaches and athletic directors would be added to a long list of professionals who are considered mandated reporters by the state, including doctors, nurses, K-12 teachers and coaches, probation officers and day care workers.

The emphasis here is on  college and university level coaches and athletic directors because these individuals generally don’t deal with minors in their day to day work.  Adding these positions to the long list of mandated reporters would remove the guess work out of who is and is not responsible for reporting suspected child sex abuse. 

Perhaps it seems like over-kill but it is better to be safe than sorry.  In many ways its seems that those at Penn State were ill prepared to deal with child sex abuse.  If this bill passes into law, there will simply be no question as to the right and legal behavior required.  For once, we  give Del. Marshall a rare thumbs up. 

While the native tribes of Virginia plan on presenting Governor Bob McDonnell with a deer later this week, a liberal leaning group, ProgressVA has left a 12 pound turkey for McDonnell, naming him the Turkey of the Year.  Why does McDonnell deserve this dubious award in the bestows eyes?

According to Hamptonroads.com:

The deer offering Gov. Bob McDonnell will accept from native Virginia tribes later this week comes with good intentions and a dose of tradition.

The frozen turkey left for him Monday?

Not so much.

A 12-pound gobbler was presented to McDonnell’s staff by ProgressVA, a left-leaning interest group which named the governor its “Turkey of the Year” for what it deemed his use of accounting gimmicks and cuts to core government services to balance Virginia’s budget.

In addition to the bird, the group left a framed resolution for the governor, accusing him of “maxing out the state’s credit card” with borrowing and refusing to close tax loopholes “that benefit his corporate donors.”

Figuring the governor wouldn’t consume the turkey, ProgressVA recommended a donation to a local food bank, which is how his office will handle the gift.

“The fact is in this tough economy many Virginians could use a free turkey at Thanksgiving,” McDonnell spokesman Tucker Martin said. “With that in mind we will donate the turkey to the Central Virginia Foodbank and we encourage all Virginians to support their local food banks this holiday season.”

But if officials had their druthers, Martin joked, instead of a turkey they “would have preferred a one year membership in the jelly of the month club, the gift that keeps on giving the whole year.”

McDonnell has played loosey goosey with the accounting as far as VRS is concerned.  I will hold a grudge forever on that subject simply because I believe allowing payments to VRS to be deferred was unconstitutional.  Additionally, McDonnell proclaimed a balanced budget.  If you still have outstanding debt, is the budget balanced?

But I don’t know what else he has done slippery.  Is he still trying to sell our liquor stores?  I guess now he gains a little more power with the senate win, we are getting ready to find out.

From the Associated Press:

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Gov. Bob McDonnell’s administration has awarded a contract to a Pennsylvania-based catering company to sell food, drinks and merchandise at Virginia highway rest areas.

 CRH Catering of Connellsville, Pa., will pay the Virginia Department of Transportation about $2 million a year for vending and advertising rights at the state’s 42 rest areas and welcome centers. Most are along interstate highways.

I thought we were prohibited from installing vendor sales at our interstate rest stops because of federal regulations and that Governor Kaine has applied for relief from the regulations.  How is it we can now have vendor machines at interstate rest stops?  Actually it is a good idea but the bidding  should have been limited   to Virginia companies first.  If no Virginia companies met the specs, then out of state companies could then bid. 

Bringing in CRH Catering is supposed to add an extra  million dollars a year to help offset the cost of keeping rest areas open.   Rest stops should be open.  To do otherwise is dangerous and irresponsible to travelers and it hurts the tourist industry.

Chinook

Washington Post:

Virginia to hold day of mourning for Navy SEALs, others killed in Afghanistan

By Anita Kumar

Gov. Bob McDonnell said that Friday will be a day of mourning for the 30 Americans — including Navy SEALs with ties to Virginia — who died in Afghanistan after Taliban forces shot down their helicopter last weekend.

All state flags will be flown at half-staff from dawn to dusk Friday.

McDonnell (R) asked Virginians to donate money to organizations, such as the Navy SEAL Foundation, that provide support and financial assistance beyond that provided by the Defense Department. Other organizations that residents are encouraged to assist include the Armed Forces Relief Trust, Special Operations Warrior Foundation and Wounded EOD Warrior Foundation.

“The human impact of the loss of these servicemen upon their families, their units, and the Virginia military community are profound,” McDonnell said. “It is with a heavy heart that I ask all Virginians to join me in a day of mourning and remembrance for those who lost their lives defending our country and to offer their support and thanks to the families and military community they left behind.”

Hopefully this day of mourning will include all Virginians who have lost their lives in Iraq or Afghanistan.  Perhaps it is time.  To not include them somehow minimizes the ultimate price other Virginia troops have paid since the post 9-11 wars have been waged.  That sure isn’t the message we want to send from Virginia.

Virginia has a long military history that includes all 4 branches of the service. 

From the VA ABC website:

ABC Tasting Events

In keeping with our mission to provide excellent customer service, Virginia ABC is proud to present tasting events at store locations across the state, allowing customers to sample select products before making a purchase. Each sample is limited to ½ ounce of distilled spirits, with a maximum of three samples per person, or up to a total of five ounces of wine. Please check back each week for new event postings.

ABC projects that approximately 240 tasting events will be held each month at select store locations. During the first year of tasting events, more than 2,850 tasting were held at approximately 195 ABC store locations. Tastings are mainly held on Fridays and Saturdays.

Become an ABC Facebook fan or Twitter follower today to keep up with tasting event postings.

As required by law, a person must be 21 years of age to participate in an ABC store tasting or to purchase alcoholic beverages.

Read more…

Several hundred thousand Irish immigrants fought in the American Civil War.

It is estimated that 40,000 Irsh  fought for the Confederacy and 170,000 Irish fought for the Union. The Union had Irish Brigades. The Irish were integrated in with the general troops in the Confederacy.

In first Manassas they fought without their shirts because of the heat. 

Rachel Maddow has given us a little history on Bob McDonnell’s tenure in Virginia and how he has gravitated towards the centrist position on raising the debt ceiling:

 It isn’t so much that McDonnell is a centrist. It is that he got kicked in the teeth with the reality of what will happen to Virginia should August 2 happen without legislation. 

Are you prepared for Virginia, with its pride in fiscal responsibility, to be one of the first off the cliff and lose its Triple A bond rating?  I, for one, am not. 

Tea-jaddists are not winning the war of words with anyone but their base and I hear that is getting a little shakey.  There is a certain arrogance in assuming that one knows all the answers to not just the US economy but also to the global economy. 

As Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell urges Congress and the White House to compromise over raising  the nation’s debt ceiling  to avoid  default on federal debt, he’s taking grief  from the GOP right.  Two candidates in particular who are trying to curry favor with the far right, Claudia Tucker, and Tito Munoz, both take shots at McDonnell for urging compromise.

According to the Richmond Times Dispatch, Ms. Tucker had the following to say:

“I frankly feel that Governor McDonnell’s willingness to bless a retreat that includes tax hikes and an increase in the debt ceiling is just plain wrong. Republicans share in the reckless spending that has gotten (America) to this point and now is the time to roll up our sleeves and get back to our basic principles.”

Tito Munoz voiced his own criticism of the governor: 

Tito Muñoz, a Republican primary candidate for the 36th state Senate district in Prince William and Fairfax counties, followed Tucker with a statement saying “I understand the governor’s job, but I disagree with his sentiment that there should be a compromise or retreat from solid, conservative principles.”

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