Tomorrow is the day for economic protest of Bush’s policies. Alice Marshall has more on GOTV.

Jim Bacon, whose views are as often as not at odds with mine, makes a lot of sense in his recent column.

Like it or not, more transportation dollars are, in the long run, a stop-gap measure. We need to change the way we live.

Fairfax County is beginning to ponder the impact of the baby boomers. And leave it to one of the county’s crack staff to elucidate the issue.

“A lot of this has to do with the baby boom generation heading into that age group,” said Fairfax County demographer Anne Cahill. “It’s not a surprising trend because we know the baby boomers are aging.”

You think? Stop the Presses!

The Hampton Roads Daily Press has a “must-read” editorial that addresses a number of the schemes to pay for transportation improvements. It provides a little bit of a history lesson, too. Among the ideas it challenges is that public-private partnerships are a panacea. There are obvious shortcomings with the idea as well as some merit. But a little perspective is needed. We can build more six-lane toll roads, though anyone who travels up I-95 through Delaware knows the back-ups toll booths can cause. But super highways aren’t the only problem. In fact, many local roads are clogged and will only get worse if wider lanes encourage more car travel and development. What are you going to do? Put a toll at stop lights?

Some of the opponents of the 2002 transportation referenda said all taxpayers should bear the brunt of traffic fixes. Wonder where the anti-taxers stand on gas taxes, er, I mean user fees?

Four stories appeared yesterday about UVa.’s plan to increase the amount of aid it offers to poorer students, although since one story suggests that families making up to $100,000 might qualify you’ve got to question my use of the term “poorer.” Three of the stories are here, here, and here.

Only the hometown newspaper included the obvious political angle.

The changes offset one argument of charter legislation critics, who say that predicted tuition increases will leave middle-income students out in the cold.

State legislators will consider this month the proposal to allow public colleges and universities greater autonomy, led by UVa, Virginia Tech and the College of William & Mary. If the charter is enacted, the three schools will accept less state money for more freedom from regulation.

A side effect, UVa officials have said, would be an expected 8 percent to 10 percent annual rise in tuition for the next five years.

“One of the criticisms [of the charter] is the increase in tuition we’re talking about,” said John A. Blackburn, UVa’s dean of admission.

Community college students, he added, “are often working or have family obligations. They can use the money. I think for the people at the General Assembly, it says we’re going to take care of students who need aid.”

Still, leaders from the university and the community college system said Monday’s announcement is not politically motivated.

“The university would have done so with or without the charter,” said Glenn DuBois, chancellor of the community college system and chairman of Virginia’s Council of Presidents.

But the move has an impact on charter legislation “indirectly,” he added.

The higher education system’s Council of Presidents has endorsed a plan to allow all state colleges and universities a degree of autonomy, particularly in setting tuition and fees.

“The Council of Presidents has certain commitments,” DuBois said. “Access is one piece, transfer is another.”

UVa President John T. Casteen III said he didn’t know what impact the aid plan’s expansion would have on state legislators, who “have not been involved in financial aid matters for some time now. I’d like them to be more involved.”

Be careful what you wish for, Mr. Casteen.

Laurie Thomas doesn’t like asking for handouts.

But Thomas, a recent graduate of the Virginia School of Technology, has had trouble finding employment as a certified medical assistant. She has epilepsy and said employers have been unwilling to hire her. Her boyfriend has a good job as a plumber’s assistant, but his salary alone isn’t enough, she said. Unemployed and with a family to feed, Thomas decided last week to apply for food stamps.

“I didn’t have a choice,” she said. “Right now, I’m just trying to figure out what bills need to be paid first and how I’m going to pay them.”

Thomas is among an increasing number of Virginians who are turning to food stamps to get by. Statewide, nearly 486,000 people received food stamp benefits last year, a 41 percent increase since 2001.

The picture was similar nationally, with nearly 24 million Americans on food stamps in 2004 – almost one-third more than four years ago. In South Hampton Roads, Virginia Beach saw the most dramatic increase. Last year, 16,781 residents received food stamps – a 45 percent jump from 2001.

“We’re hoping that this trend is about to end,” said Earl Ford, an official with the city’s Human Services Department.

Part of the spike can be attributed to welfare reform in the 1990s, which attached time limits to government assistance. Since then, officials have made a more diligent effort to enroll people who qualify for food stamps.

Still, much of the increase was fueled by rising poverty rates, compounded by an abundance of low-wage jobs with few or no benefits. Often, low- to middle-class workers are finding second or third jobs to help pay for rent and food.

More of Susan White’s story here.

Last year, reports said Del. Ben Cline (R-Amherst) was chastened by an outpouring of support at public hearings for tax increases. Still, this year, he’s pandering to the anti-tax crowd.

“Last year, we passed a record tax increase in order to fund an increase in government spending by 15 percent in a single year. A lot of folks, me included, are concerned to see that level of government expansion,” Cline said.

“We also recognize that the surplus that this has helped create, and we’re talking about a surplus that is in the area of $1 billion and counting, doesn’t need to go back into increasing spending even further,” Cline said.

“We need to recognize those individuals and businesses who have created the surplus that we’re now seeing in the first place. The taxpayers of Virginia, the hard-working men and women of Virginia, are the reason that this surplus even exists,” Cline said.

“They’re the ones who should be enjoying it. Not the government bureaucracy,” Cline said.

He must be spending a lot of time at the gas pumps or pumping Slurpees, given what he said about the public meetings last year: “I have to balance what I hear tonight with what I hear every day at the gas station, the convenience store and on Main Street.”

Cline is a freshman, I believe, obviously planning to run on the platform that the tax hikes were a bad idea. Let’s hope the folks back in his district point out what those tax hikes paid for.

What does Virginia have in common with Iran, Somalia and Sudan?
They all allow executions for crimes committed by juveniles.
Legislation submitted this year by Del. Vincent Callahan, R-McLean, and Sen. Patricia Ticer, D-Alexandria, would remove Virginia from that list by saying that juveniles who murder someone cannot be sentenced to death for their crimes.
“There’s something fundamentally wrong with a society that executes children,” Callahan said.

So it seems Vince Callahan, who until he sided with the anti-taxers for most of last year was considered a more moderate GOPer, seems to have come home a bit. Let’s hope he can bring some of his Republican brethren along.

[Jack Payden-Travers, director of Virginians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty] said that Virginia has executed 21 juvenile offenders since 1787. Of those, 19 were black.
Only six states, including Virginia, still allow people to be executed for crimes committed when they were juveniles, Payden-Travers said. Virginia is second only to Texas in the number of juveniles it has executed.

“The same folks who are criticizing the strong revenue growth also support new revenues for transportation,” [Governor Warner’s press spokeswoman Ellen] Qualls said. “Which is it: Do we have significant unmet transportation needs, or do we have too much revenue?”

No surprise, I guess, since he can’t raise money while the Assembly is in session. And after last year, who would want to take that chance! And the Assembly gets to name his interim successor.

“This is awfully early to be leaving,” Sabato said.

“This is an insane tradition almost unknown elsewhere around the country. There’s no need for a sitting attorney general to resign. We’ve invented a problem that doesn’t exist,” he said.

Much is made over the fundraising advantage he’ll have since Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine can’t raise match his fundraising efforts. But as much as both of these guys will likely raise, there comes a point of diminishing returns. A lot of money can only bring you so far.

A couple of years ago, had you said the Dems would out fundraise the GOP in the presidential campaign, you would have predicted a Dem win. But money didn’t win it for George. Smarts did, although they obviously aren’t his smarts.