‘tis funny. This piece, when it was originally dreamt up in my pretty little head, was just another “Things That Amuse Me” piece. Jay, you have an enormous head. Shut up, it’s a saying. I know my head isn’t pretty either. Anyways, this piece became a “bug me” piece when I learned a little bit of information this weekend from a friend of my wife and mine.
I must warn you, Jay is about to take you on a long strange trip to get to a point. No I’m not! Ignore the man behind the curtain please - my goal for the piece just changed is all.
Ok, we all have gripes about our government. Whether you’re Republican or Democrat, Conservative or Liberal, active in government or not – it doesn’t matter – we all always have gripes about our government(s). For the sake of this piece, I’m talking about my state’s (commonwealth’s) government – Virginia.
Fact 1 – Virginia is one of very few states that has a “personal property tax”. Yeah, pay extra every 6 months to own stuff. So, you go to the dealership and get that new Maxima. All the fixins, out the door, $45,000. Plus the standard tax, title, tags – and other various crap the dealerships put on you. The tax there is the sales tax. The normal ~5% sales tax you pay to buy anything, from bubble gum to clothes to cars. Regardless of whether or not you paid in full at the dealership, or financed the vehicle, you’ve got this internal feeling that you just paid for a car – and now you “own” it.
This is where Virginia steps in and says, congratulations on owning that new personal property. Now, every June 5th and December 5th you owe money for owning personal property. Yeah, you pay them, again, every June and December, for the fact that you own stuff. Boats, jet-skis, motorcycles, cars, trucks. I’d estimate (based on prior vehicle and subsequent taxes paid) that that $45,000 Maxima is gonna ring you for ~$600 every 6 months. Yep. Sucks. It’s utter BS.
[clears throat] Shoosh. My point to starting with that, is that Virginia should never have any budget problems. In fact, a few years ago we had a budget surplus and it was on the table to remove the personal property tax. /rejoice But alas, that fell through and they did God knows what with the budget surplus. So, with this phantom you-bought-something-and-paid-tax-to-buy-it-but-now-have-to-pay-more-tax-every-6-months………Virginia should never have budget problems. Ever.
Fact 2 – and the reason this was almost a “Things That Amuse Me” piece. Virginia is also one of only two states (Connecticut I think) in the nation that does NOT allow radar detectors in your car. Yeah, can’t use them. They even have radar-detector-detectors. Which I don’t get how that would work because the radar detector could be a passive device so how can you detect the detector if it’s purely set up as a passive collection device. Apparently they do emit an active search frequency, but I don’t get how that could be distinguished from which car it is emitting, let alone against all the cell phones, blackberries, satellite radios, satellite direction Garmin-Tom-Toms, etc. ----- but I digress. My point, and things that amuse me, is that I (conspiracy theory) always used to joke that there’s only one reason Virginia outlaws the use of radar detectors. They’re cheap and don’t want to upgrade technology on the police/state trooper’s radar units. If we simply outlaw the new technology to circumvent our ancient technology, we can just keep using the old technology without worry. Then they pay for radar detector detectors….so this seems stupid. The reason this amuses me, is, yes, you can be driving down the interstate here in Virginia……and you won’t see a state trooper on the side of the road with a fancy radar unit mounted on his vehicle, or a hidden unit that you don’t know which direction of travel he’s currently scanning, etc. You’ll see a Virginia State Trooper parked on the side of the road, standing outside his car, pointing a huge ass radar gun at you, 1985 style like he’s clocking Nolan Ryan at the ballgame.
So, they outlaw “radar detectors”, meaning you can’t purchase a unit that is mounted on your dashboard that tells you when police are scanning with radar for your speed…….but they didn’t outlaw “radar detectors”, meaning your eyes.
So I’ve established two reasons there shouldn’t be budget problems in Virginia. First the ridiculous Personal Property Tax and secondly, they don’t invest in higher end technology for the police force. We could throw in that, holy crap, Virginia also participates in a state run lottery system. Actually, two of them. One is internal to Virginia only, and also a member of one of the PowerBall/MegaMillions multi-state lotteries.
This post was originally going to end with the “amuse me” part about the cops standing on the side of the road with their 25 year old radar guns. But after learning something this weekend, regarding the state budget, it turned into “Things That Bug Me”. You see, my wife is a teacher. And we just learned this weekend that the governor and state government here are going to “ask” (read: force) all state school employees to take a day of furlough. Working one day this spring for free, giving the money back to the state government. Really? My wife’s school is already overcrowded and understaffed. And they didn’t even get a cost-of-living increase this year.
So………we’ve got a ridiculous personal property tax, we’ve got the friggin lottery which is supposed to be putting millions into the state education system, and we’ve got the fact that they aren’t updating other state programs (the radar gun side story is tongue in cheek at a real issue). This is serious stuff. Where is this money going? Where did the surplus go? Where is the spending?
Well this past weekend, traveling to VT for a home football game, we found out where. Every friggin state rest area on the interstates have $120 trash cans, multiple ones, in each bathroom. There’s Simple Human $120 (yes, $120 if you can't see it in the below pic) trash cans in every bathroom.
Seriously? Great appropriation work jackasses. 
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