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Testimony before the Fairfax County Delegation to the Virginia General Assembly

January 6, 2001
By Arthur G. Purves
President, Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance

Distinguished Delegates and Senators:

My name is Arthur Purves. I address you as president of the Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance.

Please oppose the sales tax increase. County and state tax increases over the last 25 years dwarf the proposed $144 million sales tax increase. Their legacy is crowded roads and crowded schools.

Since 1975 Fairfax County Public School annual inflation-adjusted spending, per-student, has increased from $4500 to $9000, giving the schools an extra $700 million per year. Fairfax County annual non-school spending per resident has increased from $600 to $1000, giving the county an extra $400 million a year. State tax increases in excess of population growth and inflation since 1979 give the state an extra $8 billion per year.

About 70 percent of these tax increases is spent on social programs: education, welfare, and public safety. Only four percent goes to transportation. As for current budgets, Fairfax County spends only two percent on transportation because transportation is the state's responsibility. The state spends only 13 percent of its budget on transportation because traditionally transportation was to be paid from "user fees", such as gasoline taxes and automobile decals.

This is a structural imbalance that no one ever speaks of: Social programs command the fast-growing income and real estate tax revenues, because these taxes are off-limits to transportation.

A second structural imbalance is the Fairfax County School Board's policy of paying for buildings solely from bonds. Therefore schools sell bonds annually, causing high debt service that nearly cancels out bond revenues. This year the county will sell $130 million of school bonds. It will spend $100 million on school debt service, leaving a paltry $30 million for construction and renovations.

A third structural imbalance is failure to rezone neighborhoods around rail stations for commercial use. Therefore trains are full in only one direction during rush hour, so rail is earning only half its potential revenue. Metro has inadequate maintenance funds, resulting in a billion-dollar maintenance backlog that could pre-empt Dulles Metro funding.

Government social spending has produced mediocre results. Fairfax County's average SAT score is still at the 64th percentile, a number that the school system still does not publish. School administrators want to end, not fix, the SOL tests because these tests expose weaknesses in their curriculum. Welfare and public safety budgets do not end poverty; they subsidize it.

Raising taxes solves nothing. The solution lies in raising moral values, to reduce the demand for government social spending.

Thank you.

Updated June 19, 2001

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