Will John Chichester bring the potato salad?

Candidate Creigh Deeds revealed his transportation plan in The Washington Post today.  In short he wants a “Bipartisan Commission” to study transportation.   One he’ll appoint after he’s elected, no doubt naming the “Republicans” who endorsed him. Sort of a Potts-luck dinner.  At best, that means another year with no transportation plan. 

You can read the plan here. [H/T Cathouse Chat]

RPV responded with the following release:

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2009

Deeds Uses 800 Words to Say “No Plan, Higher Taxes”

WaPo Op-Ed Repeats RPV Message on Deeds’ Roads Plan, Uses More Words

 YouTube Video of Deeds’ Epic Press Conference in Fairfax Now Over 45,000 Views

RICHMOND – Democratic candidate for governor Creigh Deeds today used nearly 800 words in a Washington Post opinion piece to deliver a message that could have been boiled down to just ten: “I have no transportation plan, but I will raise taxes.”  In what can only be described as an application for a job in the Republican Party of Virginia press shop, Deeds echoed the very sentiment the party and its associated campaigns have been expressing for months.

Deeds: Just Wait and See …

“The day after I’m elected, I will begin assembling a bipartisan commission to craft a comprehensive transportation package,” Deeds incredibly wrote in the Post, blatantly telling the people of Virginia that they will have to blindly trust that he will concoct a transportation platform following the election.

Deeds: Higher Taxes Coming …

Moreover, he again made plain his desire to locate the funding for his yet-to-be-discovered transportation proposal inside the pocketbooks of Virginia residents.  Expressing fondness for fabled tax increases of the past, Deeds wrote.  “As a legislator, I have voted for a number of mechanisms to fund transportation, including a gas tax. And I’ll sign a bipartisan bill with a dedicated funding mechanism for transportation — even if it includes new taxes.”

Recalls Disastrous Press Conference

Deeds’ opinion piece repeated the same ideas he attempted to convey during his now-infamous press gaggle following the Fairfax Chamber of Commerce debate on September 17th.  In that exchange, Deeds struggled to conceal his plans to raise taxes, but was finally forced to admit that higher taxes are his priority.  A video of the exchange between a befuddled Deeds and a perplexed, frustrated press corps has been watched over 45,000 times on YouTube in less than one week.  (Click here to join the fun and watch.)

            “I think it’s very kind of Creigh to help us advance the message that he has no transportation plan, but a very clear idea to raise taxes to pay for whatever it would end up being,” said Republican Party of Virginia Chairman Pat Mullins.  “If he wants a job in our communications department, however, he’s going to have to be more efficient in his writing.  You really don’t need 800 words to say what you should be able to say in ten or less.”

What are others saying?

Creigh Deeds Plans To Have A Transportation Plan After He’s Elected
J’s Notes
From a campaign that touts “Deeds not words” they really aren’t delivering much of either.

Creigh-Card Monty
The right-wing liberal
Now Deeds, who did nothing to stop his would-be predecessors from balancing the budget on the backs of drivers and redirecting money from roads to Obamacare-writ-small – yet still wants to run as the heir to their “legacy” – refuses to own up to what happened, and is now pretending that restoring the funding-priority balance in Richmond is “taking money from education and other obligations.”

Deeds Takes the Baliles Route to Higher Taxes
Tertium Quids
This is not so much a plan as it is a rerun. Some reruns are great (old Simpsons episodes are among my favorites). But reruns such as Mr. Deeds proposes would do little more than pour additional (and scarce) taxpayer dollars into a system that no longer works.

Virginia, Meet Your Mondale
CQ Politics
I just read his suicidal op-ed in this morning’s Washington Post, in which, Walter Mondale-like, he acknowledges his desire to raise taxes. That kind of bold play may once have worked in deep blue states where liberal electorates prefer their liberal candidates to campaign on who’s going to raise taxes higher … but in a reddish-bluish-lavender state in play?

NV: “Deeds, teller of tall tales”
SWAC Girl

BREAKING NEWS! Deeds Transportation Plan

moar funny pictures

FROM RPV…

Deeds Caught on Lack of Transportation Plan
– Deeds Answers Reporter Who Wondered When Details Would Come –
 
RICHMOND – Democratic candidate for governor Creigh Deeds once again has been exposed for having no transportation proposal for voters to consider – only a promise to raise gasoline taxes to pay for whatever it is he will dream up in the future.  Speaking to reporters following the Buena Vista Labor Day parade, Deeds was pressed on the issue by a member of the press corps.

Reporter: Are we gonna see something a little bit more detailed before the debate up in Fairfax?

Deeds: You know, Jeff, I’ve laid out a pretty detailed plan.

 
Well, It Depends on What you Mean by “Detailed” …
 
Waynesboro News-Virginian
 
“Republican Robert F. McDonnell has compiled a transportation plan while Democrat Creigh Deeds curiously has declared he won’t advance one until after – read, if – he gets elected.” 

“Deeds, on the essential subject of transportation and so far in this race, is standing at the starting blocks deaf to a starting gun that long since has sounded.”
 
 
Washington Post
 
“In response, R. Creigh Deeds, the Democratic candidate for governor, has pledged to come up with a solution in his first year in office but has offered no funding plan. He vows not to, saying that any proposal would be divisive and limit his ability to bring lawmakers together to agree on a solution once he’s elected.”
 
 
Richmond Times-Dispatch

“[Deeds’] vaunted transportation policy consists of . . . promising to build consensus, and an admission that he would sign a tax hike if one landed on his desk.”
 
 
Roanoke Times
 
“[A]s McDonnell points out, his opponent’s plan is so skimpy that he doesn’t even list transportation as a separate menu item on his Web site.
 
“We, too, have been disappointed in Democratic nominee Creigh Deeds’ dodge in presenting solutions to Virginia’s most pervasive problem.”
 
Washington Post (Again)

“Mr. Deeds, insofar as his published platform is concerned, has barely bothered to float a transportation program. Now, by stating that he’d sign a bill containing higher taxes for roads, he has at least tipped his hand.”
 
 

 
 
Creigh Deeds: No Plan for Transportation

Dear no longer "Smart" Tag people

I got your nasty gram tonight. The one that said:

Our records indicate that on at least 5 occasions in the past month your vehicle passed through a toll lane without an E-ZPass toll transaction being recorded.

Your love note goes on to imply that my transponder was not properly mounted or that there was not enough money in my account.

Let me be clear.

We have three vehicles using E-ZPass. The transponders are in the same location they were when we entered the program.

Our account is automatically debited every time we get below a certain balance.

That your equipment can’t read ours properly or that your accounting methods are slower than you’d prefer is not my fault.

So let me assure you, we won’t tolerate your adding a dollar per transaction should this occur again.

Yes, I’ll be calling in the morning to explain that.

And to allow you to apologize.

Virginia Main Stream Media just doesn't get it

Over at The right-wing liberal, DJ lists three rather embarassing examples of how the Virginia Main Stream Media are simply clueless about what just happened in the special session on transportation:

The Free Lance-Black Hole does it again!
The FLBH editorial is full of errors (and I’m being charitable, otherwise I’d call them “lies”), but the main thrust is that they simply can’t handle the fact that the House Republicans came up with a plan that ties transportation funding in Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads to transportation activity in those regions, provides more money to the two regions than the Democrats’ statewide plan, and does them both without raising taxes.

MSM special session follies: the Roanoke Times
No one is “forcing the state to divert more and more funds from new construction” – except for Governor Kaine, who wants the money to go to his pet projects first…Because the House Republicans refused to knuckle under, he and his MSM friends have gone ballistic.  That the Roanoke Times has joined them is no surprise; neither is it a surprise that they did it in the same juvenile way everyone else has outside of the Washington Post.

Dear Richmond Times-Dispatch, please DON’T recycle columns
Normally, I’m very happy to see a Bob Marshall column in a Virginia newspaper.  However, I do think the Richmond Times-Dispatch fumbled the ball on Marshall’s latest column.  Why do I sat that?  Because the column – which the RTD touted as a post-mortem on the special session – was actually written before the sessions pivotal last day, and I know that because it ran on the morning of July 9 (before the session re-convened) in the Daily Press.

The Washington Post misses the bus

And just about any other form of transportation.

Over at The right-wing liberal, D.J. McGuire has masterfully followed this whole transportation issue. Tonight, D.J. points out how editorials in The Washington Post, the Virginian-Pilot and the Richmond Times-Dispatch just don’t get it on transporation: The MSM goes on a pro-tax-hike-bender.

From The Washington Post

Republicans like to pretend that state transportation funding, last meaningfully increased a little more than halfway through the Reagan administration, can be addressed by diverting existing general fund money to build and maintain highways, bridges, tunnels and rails. They like to pretend that those funds are not needed for public schools, the salaries of sheriff’s deputies, the operation of prisons, or payments to Medicaid providers.

Wait. Just. One. Minute.

That halfway through the Reagan administration transportation just happened to be Gerry Balile’s $422 million-a-year tax hike. Baliles, as you might recall, left the state with a $2 billion budget deficit that Doug Wilder had to clean up. Wilder did it, by the way, without raising taxes.

But. Wait. There’s. More.

Timothy from I’m Surrounded by Idiots point out on D.J.’s post that The biggest percentage increase from FY03 to FY07 has been in Capital Outlay Projects, Education, and General Government.

In FY07 the amount of the state budget going to the Compensation Board for Administration of Justice services (assistance for sheriff’s deputies and jails) was 1.30%.

Maybe it’s time General Government was dishorably discharged.

D.J. also points out that the party of the Governor who couldn’t even get his own party to back his plan has some infighting going on: Yet another example how different things are in Virginia since Wednesday

See also:

Bearing Drift: Seinfield redux for Gov. Kaine

Bearing Drift: Editorialists blast Republicans over transportation session
Republicans worked hard to advance a principled agenda which raised revenue over and above what was passed last year for Northern Virginia by $300 million and sent at least the same amount passed by HB 3202 last year to Hampton Roads…all while not raising taxes during a time of a housing slowdown, soaring gas prices, and a weakening dollar.

Bearing Drift: McDonnell’s chances improve with House actions on transportation

Bearing Drift: End of session podcast

Jim Hoeft, Brian Kirwin, Shaun Kenney and D.J. McGuire give an excellent wrap up of the special session and tell us again why it’s a good day.

Check it out:  Episode 31.  Virginia Politics On-Demand, July 10, 2008.

Everybody had a role to play Governor

[Cosmo] Kaine compares GOP opposition to ‘Seinfeld’
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Gov. Timothy M. Kaine today compared the Republican opposition to a transportation fix to a episode of the TV show “Seinfeld.”

From Lt. Governor Bill Bolling’s statement:

“Unfortunately, much of the responsibility for this failure rests on the shoulders of Governor Kaine, who decided to call legislators back to Richmond without building any consensus around a possible transportation solution. In my judgment, the Governor’s decision to call the Special Session without first developing a framework for success was a mistake.

“In addition, Governor Kaine complicated the effort to find a transportation solution by introducing a transportation proposal that had very little, if any, support in the General Assembly. The Governor’s bill, which relied on massive statewide and regional tax increases, was not even supported by the members of his own party, and it was clearly not the right solution given the economic challenges that Virginia is currently facing.”

H/T Virginia Virtucon

Manoli Loupassi if you're reading this…

Your constituent (as in me) opposes HB 6055 and expects you to do the same.

See also:

Virginia Virtucon:  1st Dist. Chairman Blasts HB 6055

The right-wing liberal:  Family Foundation of Virginia opposes HB 6055

The right-wing liberal:  Is Dave Albo reading this?

Virginia Virtucon:  They Don’t Get It on HB 6055

Deo Vindice: All that is wrong with the regional government concept

I’m stepping in off the beach to point you to a must read post.

The House Republican leadership continues to show us why they’re just not getting it.  Over at Deo Vindice jatticus tells us why the resurrection of HB 3202 is a bad thing.

HB 6055 is the son of Frankenstein (HB 3202) that was ruled Un-Constitutional by the Virginia Supreme Court. The arrogance of trying to stuff this bill and its Regional Government down the throats of voters – again – reveals much of what is wrong in the elected caucus of the Republican Party of Virginia. The Regional Government scam reveals the rot of political corruption like a surgeon cutting away the sores to show the cancer.

It’s sad that he even has to point it out.  But they’re not paying attention to the people that put them there.

They're just not getting it on transportation

D.J. and the Mason Conservative discuss the special transportation session and clarify how Delegate Hamilton, Speaker Howell and who knows who else are ignoring wishes of the people.

The Right Wing Liberal – Day Four: Appalling

The Mason Conservative – NOVA’s So Great, Lets Tax It Twice!