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Some of the people, some of the time
Comedian George Carlin would have had a field day with the antics of our state lawmakers had he lived a bit longer and turned his acerbic attention to Richmond.
There are a couple of things our legislators don't seem to understand about the voters who elected them.
• We don't like procedural games. If a lawmaker has developed a plan, no matter how half-baked and marginally rational, send it to the appropriate committee, debate it and kill it or amend it. We send you to Richmond -- and to Washington -- to examine ideas with vigor and to get things done, not to demonstrate your cleverness with parliamentary maneuvering and your prowess with the rules of order.
• We elected you; we know where you stand on taxes. We know you don't want to raise taxes in a tough economic environment, and we sincerely appreciate your solicitousness of our economic well-being.
But can you please explain where the money is going to come from to make the transportation fixes and expansions we need?
You know as well as we know that the money is coming from taxpayers, so quit pretending that it isn't. Your anti-tax vigilance apparently didn't prevent you from passing taxing authority on to unelected officials last winter -- one of the single most disgraceful performances by an elected body in recent memory, and one that was quickly and appropriately slapped aside by the Virginia Supreme Court.
• We don't want you using a special session on transportation to introduce bills that have nothing whatsoever to do with roads and rails and public safety, as some of you have been trying to do. That includes tacking unrelated items into whatever transportation legislation, if any, comes out of the current chaos in the capital city.
The single best and most far-reaching government reform we can think of -- in Richmond and in Washington -- would mandate that every bill that passes through the legislative branch of government deal with one issue and one issue only.
Our problems are compounding and growing more complex. We need open, thoughtful minds to deal with them. Those, we're sorry to report, seemed in short supply in Richmond a couple weeks ago.
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