Virginia Republicans Say Tax Me

February 18, 2006

The Virginia Senate (controlled by Republicans) approved a plan Friday to raise $900 million a year for transportation through higher taxes on gasoline and other motor vehicle fees. These include higher sales tax on cars (ouch), higher fines for bad drivers (good!), registration fees based on weight (mmmm...ok) and higher taxes on home sales (outrage!). I admit somebody has to pay but, adding more taxes on home sales is nutty. Guess who will ultimately pay...home buyers. We don't need any more "fees" to pump up home prices any more than what the market dictates. Home prices are already absurdly high. This will hurt those that need affordable housing the most.

The Virginia state government got us into this mess by ignoring the problem for the last 10 years. Now it is a crisis and they turn to our wallets to pay for the fix. How about giving us money back that the Virginia Department of Transportation has wasted the last 10 years! Do we really think Virginia will spend $900 million effectively through a broken bureaucracy?

The REALTOR® associations are lobbying hard against the added tax on home sales. As they should.

The governor, senate and house are headed for a showdown in the weeks to come. I hope they find some common ground and include provisions in any legislation that holds VDOT accountable for wasting any more tax dollars.

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