Perusing through the prefiled bills a bit ago, I was pleasantly surprised to note that Senator Ken Cuccinelli has introduced a couple of bills that I strongly favor. He was not in his office when I attended the opening session Wednesday so I couldn’t thank him in person for introducing these bills. Perhaps I’ll get a chance to do so on my next trip.
SB83 increases the state tax credit for political contributions. The current credit is 50% of the contribution, not to exceed $25 for a single taxpayer or $50 for a jointly filed return. The bill would double the amount of the credit, to $50 and $100, respectively. One of the first posts I wrote on this blog dealt with campaign finance. As we saw this year, the cost of campaigns continues to rise. Increasing the tax credit is a step in the right direction.
SB82 addresses a pet peeve of mine, something that was also the topic of one of my early posts: party affiliation on the ballot for constitutional offices. It’s pretty simple for me: as long as nominees are chosen through parties, the party affiliation should be on the ballot.
I’m hoping that both of these bills pass and I’ve included them in my Photosynthesis portfolio.
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
You have a wonderful set of legislative priorities!
And who knew that Senator Cuccinelli could come up with something I would agree with. Just goes to show you anything is possible.
Thanks! And I agree – I was surprised, too.
This tax cut disproportionately benefits the affluent, and there is no corresponding spending cut to pay for it.
Cuccinelli is a hypocrite who talks tax cuts but doesn’t want to pay for them with spending cuts. I am sorry that Vivien was taken in by him.
Affluent? How’s that? We’re talking about the maximum eligible for the credit being $200, with the credit itself being $100 – and that’s on a joint return! How in the heck can that be considered “affluent”?
A couple donates $5 million – their credit is still only $100.
The people who donate $200 to state candidates in a year are, on average, far more affluent than the average person.
Poor people don’t donate $200 to state candidates. Many middle income people will think twice about it.
Cuccinelli’s bill will probably cost the state a couple of million dollars, assuming that a couple of thousand people take advantage of it.
How does Cooch propose to make up the loss of income? Plus he wants to squander more money on what he calls abstinence education.
Cooch is a big talker about tax cuts, but then Cooch voted for HB3202 which raised taxes for Northern Virginians by hundreds of millions of dollars a year.
Cooch can keep his $100. I won’t thank him for it. You shouldn’t be thanking him for anything. He was for the marriage amendment, against all forms of abortion even in cases of rape and incest, and wants to keep it possible for the insane to buy guns from private sellers at gun shows.
Cooch allies himself with an extremist and out-of-control minority in his own party. Last March 31 Cooch travelled to Woodbridge to endorse Faisal Gill over school board member Julie Lucas for the HOD-51 Republican nomination. At the event was Cooch’s ally Grover Norquist.
Why are you thanking this evil man? As you point out, the bill is trifling except for the couple of mill in lost revenue. Cooch will use this deficit-ballooner in order to claim he is a tax-cutter.
Actually, I was just looking at the impact statement (pdf) and the cost is estimated to be less than $1 million, based on the 2005 data.
There’s a whole lot that I don’t agree with Cuccinelli on and you’ve enumerated some of them. Nevertheless, I’m not looking at the sponsor. I’m looking at the legislation. And this bill is a good one.