Messaging for the Future
Norman over at One Man's Trash has been reflecting on what Virginia conservatives can do to start offering some solutions.
Correctly, he points to the Virginia Institute for Public Policy's Freedom and Prosperity Agenda as a start. I couldn't agree more.The Freedom and Prosperity Agenda focuses on four main areas - taxes and spending, property rights, education reform and transportation. The Agenda's planks are as follows:
Eliminate the War of 1812 tax (BPOL)
Taxpayer's Bill of Rights (TABOR)
Eliminate the Death tax
Eliminate the prepayment of the Sales and Use tax
Redefine and limit the public uses for which private property may be confiscated
Constitutional Amendment to base real estate taxes on the acquisition value of the property
Parental choice in education
Protect the transportation trust fund with a Constitutional Amendment
Proposals for new taxes must contain sunset provisions
Freedom and Fiscal Accountability Act for Virginia's Public Colleges and Universities
Eliminate the Car tax In 1994, Republicans offered a Contract with America. Eleven years after the Republican Revolution, what has changed? Similarly in 2000, Republicans in Virginia took back the General Assembly. Five years after the changing of the guard, what has changed?
FPA is a great start, and TABOR is the most critical plank in the entire schematic. But rather than suggestions (as the Contract ended up becoming in 1994), the FPA should be a similar agenda -- reforms we believe will restrict the size and scope of Virginia government.
It's a good start, but there's room for improvement. For instance, restructuring VDOT and reforming the tax schematic in Virginia (localities and all) is critical - absolutely critical - before we start tinkering with the bells and whistles.
Perhaps I'm one of the flat-earthers who wants to see dramatic change rather than reform.
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Norman Leahy 
2 Comments:
It is a start. It is also long overdue. At the same time, I wish it had been put out there as a campaign platform (which had been my very earliest impression, but that was not so) for all candidates to sign onto and bring before the voters. It may or may not have made a small difference, but it would have been something.
It has also been run past the statewide candidates. Recall that George Fitch endorsed it (but like so much George did, it went unnoticed). I believe it may yet make an appearance in some of the statewide campaigns.
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