Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.comment From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: No bonds in Virginia Date: Mon, 2 Nov 92 15:45:13 EST Message-ID: \SE E;COMMENTARY;EDITORIAL \HD No bonds in Virginia You may never use the new $50,000 jogging path down at Leesylvania State Park. You may never take advantage of the half-million-dollar climate control system planned for cabins at Staunton River State Park way down in Halifax County or enjoy the new $100,000 amphitheater at Seashore State Park. But Virginia voters will pay for them all if the big $613 million bond package passes. It is a measure of how far removed Virginia government is from the concerns of Virginia citizens today that it is trying to get money for jogging paths and climate-controlled campgrounds from people who haven't always been sure where they were going to get their next paycheck. In case Gov. L. Douglas Wilder's office hasn't noticed, the nation is only just now coming out of its economic torpor. He isn't the only one with the memory lapse. The state Chamber of Commerce thinks this is a dandy time for taxpayers to go another $613 million in the hole. So do the big financial houses in Richmond, which might get to finance the bonds. So do university officials, who hope to get lots of new buildings out of this. So do the politicians who voted to put this bond issue on the ballot. If taxpayers would fork over the bonds, the General Assembly and the governor won't have to answer for the fact that they should have been setting aside tax revenues for capital improvements over the last decade but didn't. Such is the craving for bonds that whole squads of university officials have been drafted to lobby alumni and taxpayers to vote for them. Virginia Commonwealth University officials in Richmond have enlisted one of their buildings in the cause, hanging a sign from it that pleas for passage. This is government at its worst. One wonders how taxpayers feel about seeing their money being used to lobby them for more money. There is little standing in the way of this juggernaut but the taxpayer whose unhappy experience it is that nothing government does is "free" and a lot of it probably unnecessary. Jogging paths? Amphitheaters? Marinas? Swimming "complexes"? Once upon a time, Mr. Wilder would have called these "niceties." Why is the state proposing to spend millions improving government campgrounds in direct competition with private campgrounds? Far and away the biggest chunk of bond money, $472 million, is set aside for capital improvements at government schools. If taxpayers want to give Radford University $5 million for something called a College of Global Studies, where students can study rain forest devastation, if they want to spend money upgrading the George Mason University law school in Arlington so would-be lawyers can study in greater comfort, then the bond issue is for them. But somebody ought to explain what happened to the lottery funds that were supposed to pay for all this originally. Remember, one of the arguments for letting the government run a numbers racket was that its share of the take was reserved for capital improvements statewide. Instead it went to cover basic government operating costs. Perhaps the most worthwhile bond projects, $45 million worth, are those for mental health. If you vote for any, vote for these. Remember, however, that lottery funds were supposed to cover these too. A vote for bonds is an invitation for lawmakers to return to their profligate ways. Vote against the Virginia bond issues. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM