Real estate taxes doubled.

State budgets had $4 billion surpluses.

Why, then, did Delegate Steve Shannon vote for more taxes
and "abusive driver fees"?

The charts below show that fast-growing county and state taxes were exceeded by even faster growing spending for schools and Medicaid, leaving no money for transportation. Despite soaring spending, about sixty percent of Virginia schoolchildren achieve below grade level, and Medicaid reimubrsement rates do not cover the costs of doctors and nursing homes. Higher taxes are not the solution.

	Fairfax County real estate taxes doubled Real estate taxes for the typical Fairfax County homeowner doubled between 2000 and 2007, from about $2400 to $4800. Taxes increased ten percent a year while homeowner incomes increased only two percent per year. Since inflation averaged three percent annually, households were getting poorer while taxes increased. Instead of providing tax relief, the General Assembly's transportation bill increases taxes and fees, including a new five-percent tax on auto repairs and increasing the grantor's tax (on home sales) 400 percent. Real estate taxes in this chart are in current dollars and are not adjusted for inflation. In the subsequent charts, revenue and spending increases are adjusted for inflation.
	Fairfax County revenues increased two times faster than population Even though Fairfax County revenues increased more than twice as fast as population since 1996 (53 percent compared to 22 percent), little, if any, of the tax increases went to transportation. Most of the real-estate tax increases went to employee raises and benefits. Between 2000 and 2007 county employees received average raises of five percent per year. Real estate taxes increased ten percent per year so county salaries could increase five percent per year, while homeowner incomes increased two percent per year. Higher taxes fund generous county medical insurance and pensions while the private sector is losing its health insurance and pensions. The school system has 12 applicants for every job opening. The county has 50 applicants for every opening.
	Virginia revenues increased three times faster than population Since 1996, Virginia revenues increased more than three times faster than population (62 percent compared to 18 percent). Why then did the General Assembly and the governor impose "abusive driver fees" and higher taxes on top of the real estate tax increases? It was because they had not confronted runaway spending for schools and Medicaid. Education, welfare, and courts and prisons account for about 75 percent of Virginia's General Fund budget.
	Virginia public-school spending increased four times faster than enrollment Since 1996, combined local, state, and federal spending for Virginia public schools has increased nearly four times faster than enrollment (47 percent compared to 12 percent). Statewide, nearly half of the school budget comes from the state and nearly half comes from local government; less than ten percent comes from the federal government. (Fairfax County gets only 20 percent of its school budget from the state.) Since 1996, school staff (not shown) has increased nearly three times faster than enrollment (34 percent vs. 12 percent).
	Fairfax County public-school spending increased four times faster than enrollment Since 1996, spending for Fairfax County public schools has increased more than four times faster than enrollment (66 percent compared to 15 percent). School staff (not shown) has increased more than twice as fast as enrollment (36 percent vs. 15 percent). The growth of school staff also increases taxes and diverts money from transportation.
	Higher spending did not increase achievement Higher spending has produced no significant increase in SAT scores in Fairfax County or statewide. Fairfax County does perform better than the state, but also enjoys better demographics. Fairfax County, VA, and Montgomery County, MD, are the best-educated counties in the United States, with 58 percent of adults having a bachelor's degree or higher. The national average is 27 percent. According to the National Assessment of Education Progress, about 40 percent of Virginia students achieve at or above grade level, and 60 percent below grade level. As Fairfax County performs a bit better than the state, perhaps 50 percent of Fairfax County students achieve at or above grade level, and 50 percent below. If you have a bachelor's degree, your child will probably earn one too. However, as a nation, we rely heavily on immigrant engineers and scientists. Also, our education system does not produce enough math and science teachers.
	Mandated programs did not raise minority achievement Despite higher school spending, there has been no significant reduction in the minority student achievement gap. Regarding Special Education, when Fairfax County schools superintendent, Dr. Jack Dale, was asked what percentage of Learning Disabled students were successfully remediated before 12th grade, he answered that he did not know. Not one of Fairfax County's 137 elementary schools provides phonics-based reading instruction. To reduce the demand for Medicaid, we can and must do a better job of educating low-income children so that they can become self-supporting adults.
	Medicaid spending increased five times faster than population Medicaid provides subsidized health care to three groups: nursing home care for the elderly poor, long-term care for the disabled, and healthcare for low-income mothers and children. Since 1996, Virginia Medicaid spending has been increasing more than five times faster than population (77 percent compared to 14 percent). Even so, Medicaid reimbursement rates are so low that it is difficult to find doctors who accept Medicaid patients. There is a waiting list of 3000 disabled persons needing Medicaid "waivers", which reimurse home-care expenses so individuals do not have to be institutionalized. When the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services (DMAS) was asked why Medicaid costs are rising so fast, their answer was that they only administer the program and do not analyze the reasons for higher costs. When the General Assembly's Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) was asked the same question, they responded by saying that they get all their information from DMAS.

Schools

With better curricula, schools could educate low-income children to become self-supporting adults. One example is Marva Collins' Westside Preparatory School in Chicago. Elementary school principal, Thaddeus Lott, achieved similar results in Houston urban schools with the DISTAR curriculum. E. D. Hirsch's Core Knowledge Sequence, which teaches geography, American history and world history every year from Kindergarten thru sixth grade has also had success with well-off and disadvantaged students. The same curricula that is able to empower at-risk students will also better prepare students for science and engineering.

However, public schools have for decades resisted phonics. History has been watered down into social studies. Computation skills are lost to hand calculators.

To get curricula that work into the classroom, we need charter schools. However, the Virginia constitution gives school boards veto authority over charter-school applications. We need to amend the Virginia constitution so charter schools do not have to get approval from school boards, which have a high percentage of their own students achieving below grade level.

Medicaid

Empowering low-income students to become self-supporting adults would reduce the demand for Medicaid. Healthcare for the poor requires more than subsidized doctors' visits; it requires a way out of poverty. Poverty itself breeds ill health. Self-supporting adults would also be able to take care of elderly parents rather than relying on Medicaid nursing homes.

Transportation

Build roads, not rail. Commuter rail is expensive. For example, building rail to Dulles will cost $55,000 per rider ($5-billion construction cost and 91,000 riders per day), while the Springfield Interchange cost $1600 per car ($676 million construction and 430,000 cars per day). Rail is expensive to maintain, and government has been chronically underfunding maintenance of the existing Metrorail system. For example, Metrorail recently lost a transformer in a thunderstorm due to the system's "aging infrastructure." We should not extend rail to Dulles when government cannot afford to maintain the existing system. Also, rail to Tysons will not relieve congestion there, with or without a tunnel, because the buildings in Tysons are too dispersed.

Illegal Immigrants and Welfare

Illegal immigrants should not have their low wages subsidized by taxpayer-funded entitlements. However, the U.S. birthrate has not provided the growing workforce needed for a growing economy. Abortion contributes to the low birthrate. There are 12 million illegals filling the jobs that would have been filled by the 40 million Americans aborted since 1973. Nonresidents who pay their own way should be legalized under a guest-worker program.

If we expect nonresidents to pay their own way, residents should too. While we would have to grandfather those currently on the welfare system, we should begin a gradual, probably decades-long, phase-out of welfare. Welfare provides financial incentives for out-of-wedlock births, and the growth of "Great Society" welfare has paralleled the increase in single-parent families. Nearly half the expenses of a family with two parents and two young children is taxes and childcare. If taxes were lower and a parent could stay home, that family's cost of living would be cut in half. The biggest expense is housing. Zoning should allow the private sector to profitably build low-income housing as an alternative to subsidized housing.

Social Services

Families reduce the cost of government by caring for preschoolers and the elderly, being with teenagers after school, and caring for the disabled and the mentally ill. Institutionalization of the disabled and mentally ill is extremely costly and the care uncertain. Providing home-based care, however, is difficult. The divorce rate for families with disabled children is 80 percent. Families caring for the disabled and the mentally ill often need help with transportation and paying for drugs, caregivers, or expensive medical equipment. This government has undertaken and must continue to do, but it will cost less if government supports care provided at home and families are able to provide it.

Moral Values, Low Taxes

In the Federalist Papers, James Madison observed, "If men were angels, no government would be necessary." The Ten Commandments are the foundation of successful families, but keeping the commandments requires strength beyond our own. In ending Bible-reading and prayer in public schools, the Supreme Court removed from the classroom the basis of Western Civilization.

Classrooms also undermine faith by misrepresenting science. New species appear suddenly in the fossil record, and they do not change. Darwin acknowledged this as a major argument against his theory. In saying that man was created by chance, Darwinism challenges the most intuitive argument for the existence of God. However the fossil record contradicts Darwin's prediction of gradual change. Darwin hoped that subsequent fossil discoveries would support his theory. They did not. In 1972, prominent evolutionary paleontologists, the late Stephen Jay Gould, of Harvard, and Niles Eldredge, curator at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, proposed the theory of "Punctuated Equilibrium" to reconcile Darwinism with the absence of evolution in the fossil record. This theory states that evolution occurred not gradually as Darwin said, but in bursts too short to be preserved in the fossil record. Despite decades of debate, the evolutionist community has not succeeded in refuting this desperation hypothesis.

As of 2006, for the first time less than half of US households were headed by married couples. Thirty-six percent of births now occur outside of marriage. While many single parents raise their children successfully, children raised within marriage are more likely to do well in school and are at less risk for poverty and crime. Strengthening marriage and families would reduce the demand for government.

Higher taxes are symptoms, not solutions.

For the views of Mr. Purves' opponent, visit Delegate Steve Shannon's website.