We Can’t Control It – So Let’s Rant About It
May 10, 2008 – 5:55 am
One of our local television stations (WDBJ 7 – Roanoke) recently did a little investigative reporting to determine how our tax dollars are being distributed. Certain aspects of the distribution surprised me a little. Here’s the breakdown:
- 35% goes to fund public education.
- 29% is divided into lots of small pieces; the biggest of which goes to sheriff’s offices, local jails and courts.
- 14% goes to Medicaid to ensure poor Virginians get health care.
- 10% goes to state colleges and universities.
- 5% goes to keeping state prisons running.
- 6% goes to the car tax relief.
The amount of tax dollars that are earmarked for public education seemed reasonable to me. This is one government service for which I don’t mind breaking open my wallet. However, I will temper this comment with the caveat that I expect good stewardship of the money. My primary concern with the amount of money being spent on education has nothing to do with the money that eventually finds its way into our classrooms. What concerns me is the amount being spent to support the bureaucracy in Richmond. When I worked for the state, my office was located in the Monroe Towers building which was heavily occupied by education-related offices. Every time I hear the annual debate about increasing teacher salaries, I wonder if we might be able to pay our teachers a little better if we could thin out some of those bureaucratic “support” positions in Richmond.
The amount of money that the state has to pay for Medicaid is another area that concerns me. However, I’m not alone in my concern about this issue. Governors from across the nation have been expressing their concern about the rapid increase in Medicaid expenses for several years. I don’t mind contributing to a program to provide medical coverage for less fortunate people but sooner or later, something is going to have to be done to get control of medical costs. The problem for the average tax payer is we are getting hit twice by the increased medical costs since the cost of our personal medical coverage also goes up every year.
The 10% that we devote to supporting our colleges and universities also seems reasonable to me. However, I have been in Richmond during the General Assembly session and every year the university lobbyists are lined up with their hands out. Make no mistake, colleges and universities are big business. Most large public universities have real estate holdings with a commercial value that is staggering. Unfortunately, these holding don’t yield tax revenue for local and state government operations. Of course, one could argue that the amount of revenue that is generated by one Virginia Tech football game probably covers the missing real estate tax revenue. I guess it’s a matter of perspective.
Since I come from a criminal justice background, I probably shouldn’t complain too much about the amount of money that is being spent in that genre. However, the amount of money that is spent to send people to jail and then keep them there does bother me. After over 25 years of working in the criminal justice system, I realize that some people need to be sent to jail and kept there but I honestly believe that these folks are the exception to the rule. We can’t afford to continue building new jails and expanding our existing correctional facilities. Our legislators need to reexamine the mandatory sentencing laws and begin to explore alternative sentencing options. A recent Department of Justice report revealed that more than 5.6 million Americans are in prison or have served time there. That means that 1 in 37 U.S. adults have spent time in a confinement facility – this is the highest incarceration level in the world. If this rate continues, a black male in the United States would have about a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison during his lifetime. The chances aren’t much better for Hispanic and white males whose chances of serving time are 1 in 6 and 1 in 17 respectively. Something has got to give even if our politicians have to risk appearing “soft on crime.”
This final issue that bothers me is the car tax refund program. Here’s how it was explained to me, local governments stopped collecting a percentage of the vehicle tax that they used to collect. However, the state takes a portion of your income taxes to reimburse the localities for not collecting the car tax. What is wrong with this picture? The bottom line is former Governor Gilmore made a campaign promise to end the car tax that contributed greatly to his election. If you recall, that election was very tight and political analysts said whoever came up with an issue that resonated with the voters would win. The Gilmore campaign came up with repealing the car tax – which every tax paying Virginia hated. Unfortunately, the local governments depend on the car tax revenue to operate so the state had to make up the lost revenue. Some might call this “smoke and mirrors” accounting – I call it electioneering and politics.
Over the years, I have found that when a writer or a speaker starts using statistics expressed in percentages, you better start paying attention. Fortunately, the WDBJ reporter also broke number down in dollars. The average tax payer in Southwest Virginia earns $39,340 per year and will pay a little over $2,000 in taxes. Here’s how the actual dollar distribution breaks down:
- More than $700 goes to public schools.
- Medicaid gets $280.
- State colleges, such as Virginia Tech and UVA, get $200.
- $120 goes to the car tax relief.
- State prisons get $100.
- $581 is divided in part among local sheriff’s, jails and court systems.
Virginia expects to collect more than $10 billion in income taxes from 2007. However, income taxes only account for less than 30% of the total revenues collected in Virginia. The balance consists of revenue produced from other taxes like the sales tax and gas tax. So the next time some irate citizen tell you that he pays your salary, you can explain why that isn’t exactly true. Check out the full story.
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