Arlington Senator to Reintroduce Sales Tax
Today’s Examiner reports that Sen. Mary Margaret Whipple (D-Arlington) “plans to reintroduce legislation (in the General Assembly) that would increase the commonwealth’s sales tax to fund mass-transit projects.” The bill would provide the $50 million required by the federal legislation being pushed by U.S. Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va).
The same legislation passed 37-3 in the Senate earlier this year, but failed to get out of the House Finance Committee. Since American taxpayers would fork out $1.5 billion if Davis’ bill passed and local government provided the “matching amounts,” Whipple opined for the Examiner, “You can’t find a much better deal than this.”
Pundit Larry Sabato thinks the legislation will have to wait for the results of the November 2007 elections. If the General Assembly thinks it’s important to match the federal funds (assuming Davis’s legislation passes Congress), let them pay for it through the general fund. There’s no question that traffic congestion is a problem in Northern Virginia, but that doesn’t require a tax increase. Rather, it means that representations in the General Assembly defer some other of their pet spending projects.