Pubdate: Tue, 28 Jan 2014
Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch (VA)
Copyright: 2014 Media General Communications Holdings, LLC.
Contact:  http://www.timesdispatch.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/365

POTPOURRI

Never let it be said that the General Assembly is a do-nothing 
legislature. Lawmakers have been doing a great deal in the short time 
since they convened.

Herewith, some brief comments on a few items:

Hybrid Tax: Both chambers have approved a measure to repeal the $64 
tax on hybrid vehicles passed as part of last year's transportation 
package. The rationale for the tax - hybrids use less gasoline, so 
their gas taxes don't cover the costs they impose on the road network 
- - makes sense, but applies to more than just hybrid vehicles.

Many nonhybrid cars get better mileage - a fact that calls into 
question hybrids' ostensible merits.

Nevertheless, apoplectic hybrid owners resent what they consider a 
tax on virtue.

This one's days are numbered. Farm freedom: In an echo of the 
raw-milk debate that has cropped up around the country, farm 
interests backed big government and successfully opposed a measure to 
let small farmers sell their products without jumping through a 
Ringling Bros.' circus worth of regulatory hoops.

But small farmers might take home a consolation prize: a measure, 
partly inspired by the case of Martha Boneta, putting farms on the 
same footing as wineries by forbidding localities to demand a permit 
before small farmers host parties and weddings.

Fireworks: Louisa Sen. Tom Garrett has introduced a bill that would 
allow Virginians to buy more powerful fireworks - short of those used 
by licensed pyrotechnicians, but stronger than the crackers currently 
permitted. Garrett worked with fire departments and others with a 
vested interest in the issue to craft an acceptable measure.

The measure, which has cleared the Senate, deserves House passage, 
too, even though Garrett is pitching it as - sigh - an additional 
source of tax revenue.

Child support: Now to a different source of potential fireworks: A 
House bill - now in Senate hands - that would update Virginia's 
antiquated child-support guidelines. It also would remove a $250 
threshold for medical and dental expenses.

Instead of the custodial parent alone shouldering expenses below that 
amount, separated parents would share the cost based on income.

That might make sense from an equity perspective, but it could prove 
problematic from a practical one - clogging family courts with 
senseless squabbling and spiteful show-cause motions over how to 
split a $10 copayment.

War on drugs: Much of the nation is reconsidering the wisdom of both 
the prosecution-only model for the war on drugs and the relentless 
ratcheting up of mandatory minimum sentences, which have pinioned the 
courts and swollen the prisons.

But not Del. Charles Poindexter: He has introduced a bill to more 
than triple the mandatory minimum sentence for making or selling 
small quantities of meth. Hang-em-high measures like that have populist appeal.

But the approach has produced only a spectacular failure to reduce 
drug consumption, and there's no reason to think this time will be 
any different.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom