By David Robinette Jr., Patrick Springs
Virginians are about to get poorer. That is, if the more than 50 proposed new tax bills working through the General Assembly become law. As these bills are all Democrat-sponsored, most if not all could pass given Democrat occupancy of the Governor’s office. Perhaps I missed something, but I seem to recall that Democrats, including Abigail Spanberger, nearly universally campaigned last November on a platform of “affordability”. Give us power, they urged, and we will make Virginia “affordable” again. For whom exactly? I, for one, don’t quite see how imposing literally dozens of new taxes that would impact virtually every aspect of an average Virginian’s life makes anything more affordable.
As reported by ABC affiliate WJLA (https://wjla.com/news/local/virginia-democrats-introduce-flood-of-new-tax-proposals-despite-running-on-affordability-money-employer-property-dog-walking-grooming-vehicle-repair-dry-cleaning-concert-event-counseling), the Democrat-sponsored tax bills would do the following: levy new sales taxes in all Virginia counties, increase the employer tax, impose prohibitive new taxes on guns and ammunition, expand income tax brackets, impose taxes on deliveries from Amazon, Uber Eats, FedEx, and UPS, tax users of storage facilities, tax gym memberships, tax dog grooming (and dog walkers), impose new vehicle taxes and highway use fees, tax vehicle repairs, tax dry cleaning, and add a new tax on home repairs. On top of all of these taxes (and this list is not exhaustive), Governor Spanberger has indicated Virginia will rejoin the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), from which former Governor Glenn Younkin had withdrawn Virginia’s participation. This initiative, supposedly designed to combat “climate change”, imposes “carbon taxes” on the member states. Energy producers in those states pay a fee (i.e., tax) for every ton of carbon emitted. As taught in Economics 101, every tax paid by a producer is always passed on to consumers. Always. According to the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy (https://www.thomasjeffersoninst.org/cost-of-democrat-supported-carbon-tax-reaches-500-million-per-year/), the average Virginia household could expect to pay approximately $1,100 more annually for electricity if Virginia actually rejoins the RGGI. That’s approximately $100 more per month. Adding the financial burden of dozens of new taxes that take significantly more hard-earned dollars from the pockets of Virginians certainly doesn’t sound as though it will make life more “affordable” by any definition I know.
Southwest Virginia is not nearly as economically affluent as the Democrat-dominant population centers of Northern Virginia or the Tidewater area. Perhaps someone from the Democrat Party can explain to us just how sending even more of our increasingly scarce money to Richmond in taxes for dog walking to dry cleaning and everything in between—when the state already has a $2.7 billion treasury surplus—will make life more affordable for those who call this area home.
Perhaps Governor Spanberger will see the lunacy of such a tax-mad course of action. Perhaps, fearful of the political dangers, she will veto at least some of these proposals. We will see in a few weeks’ time. But what does the utter audacity of proposing so many new taxes in the current economic climate say about Democrats’ true priorities, talk of “affordability” notwithstanding? What does it say about Virginia’s future?
