By a five to one margin, speakers at last night\u2019s town hall meeting in the most conservative area of Fairfax County spoke in favor of increased funding of the state budget. Many spoke specifically in favor of the Senate\u2019s plan, with a few asking that transportation funding be restored.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Del. Gary Reese (R-Oak Hill) organized the meeting and apologized to the audience for the legislature\u2019s inability to pass a budget, saying he was \u201cdeeply disappointed.\u201d Attending were Sen. Ken Cuccinelli, Sen. Jay O’Brien and as an onlooker, Del. Brian Moran who represents Alexandria. Cuccinelli simply thanked people for coming. O\u2019Brien was late and made no remarks. None of the lawmakers made any comment after the testimony to explain their position or reactions to the pleas of their constituents.<\/p>\n
An unofficial count was 36 speakers in favor of increased funding and seven opposed to new taxes. About 100 people attended the meeting.<\/p>\n
Mike Anzilotti, a resident in the area and head of the Virginia Business Council, asked O\u2019Brien and Cuccinelli where the money was coming from for transportation. Anzilotti, a retired bank executive and Republican who is frustrated with the conservative wing of the party, stressed the need for infrastructure investment.<\/p>\n
[Editor\u2019s Note: Do we have anyone who could challenge Cuccinelli in the Republican primary next time?]<\/p>\n
The first three speakers were against higher taxes, but then the meeting ascended into a litany of needs and an appreciation for what higher taxes might afford. <\/p>\n
One man pointed out that a deputy sheriff\u2019s salary qualifies a family of four for food stamps. Another said \u201cif you signed a no-tax pledge you\u2019re not a politician but an ideologue.\u201d <\/p>\n
Another read the amount of increased taxes at different income levels under the Senate plan, a useful tool for countering the \u201cmassive\u201d tax charge.<\/p>\n
But no one mentioned the negligible growth in the General Fund to counter the accusations that the budget has grown wildly in recent years. That point should be assigned to at least one person at every meeting.<\/p>\n
Community activist Frank Blechman said he would use only a few seconds of his time to ask a question: What were the lawmakers doing to give local governments new sources of revenue? He then said he would leave the remainder of his three minutes for the lawmakers to respond. Reese ruled him out of order and refused to answer the question, telling him if he didn\u2019t like the rules he could leave. Cuccinelli, O\u2019Brien and Reese often say they oppose more taxes because Fairfax doesn\u2019t get its \u201cfair share\u201d and express dismay over rising property taxes but won\u2019t vote for tax equalization. A later speaker noted the incident and said, \u201cI\u2019ve never been to a meeting where a voter asked a question and was shown the door.\u201d<\/p>\n
An unemployed man said he doesn\u2019t like taxes but enjoys the quality of life here and was willing to pay more taxes for it. Rick Baumgarten, who in August resumes his past role as president of the Fairfax Education Association, said, \u201cWe\u2019re judged by how we\u2019re serving the least among us, and I don\u2019t like how we\u2019re serving the least.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ron Lieberman said his son, president of the Young Democrats at his high school, register 120 young people to vote. Ron also talked about his daughter, who due to the lack of classes at her Virginia college, will not be able to graduate in four years.<\/p>\n
Some of the anti-tax remarks included, \u201cWe can\u2019t tax ourselves into prosperity.\u201d One called the Senate leadership extremist. Another speaker used the same term to describe Gov. Warner\u2019s budget and said he felt he was in the “socialist republic of Sully” (the local district). An earlier anti-tax speaker held Colorado up as an example of a state that instituted tax caps and has survive well.<\/p>\n
[Editor\u2019s Note: If anyone has information of Colorado\u2019s experience, let me know.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By a five to one margin, speakers at last night\u2019s town hall meeting in the most conservative area of Fairfax County spoke in favor of increased funding of the state budget. Many spoke specifically in favor of the Senate\u2019s plan, with a few asking that transportation funding be restored.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1424"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1424\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/griendling.com\/wordpress1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}