August 23, 2009
Economist Don Boudreaux Cites Tax Foundation in Richmond Times-Dispatch Column
"Raising taxes now is a crazy idea"
By Don Boudreaux
According to the Tax Foundation, in 1978 Virginians' per-capita state and local tax burden was $553. When reckoned in 2008 dollars, that means that every man, woman, and child in Virginia back then forked out $1,964 to fund state and local government activities. By 2008 that tax burden had risen to $3,281—a whopping 67 percent higher, in real terms, than 30 years earlier.
And yet some pundits and politicians insist that now is the time to make this burden even heavier.
Yes, state and local government revenues now are falling because of the economic downturn. But not by much. Richmond's fiscal year 2008 general-fund revenues were up by 1.3 percent over 2007, exceeding the official forecast by nearly $16 million. But projections for fiscal year 2009 are indeed for those revenues to come in lower by about 5 percent.
