While traveling out of state recently, I found myself in an urban center where alcohol sales have been privatized. It was an ugly scene: corner stores selling liquor next to seedy bars; steel grates covering smokey windows lit only by the neon signs that beckoned people inside for cheap whiskey. The traffic was regular. Not far away a Salvation Army drop-in facility did its best to provide refuge for God’s children afflicted with life’s challenges — abuse, mental illness, addiction — and beset by struggle.
You have seen the newspapers and now know that there are those in state government who want to increase the number of liquor stores from around 300 to over 1000. While I am sure they are not interested in having our cities and towns turn into the kind of place I described, too often the unintended consequences of well meaning politicians become damaging and detrimental to families. If we truly believe that encouraging family values begins with valuing families we need to ensure communities are given every chance to thrive.
A few weeks back we reached out to you and asked what you thought about the Governor’s plan to privatize ABC retail sales and increase the number of outlets. Your response was overwhelming: 80% of you said “No.” Since then we have heard directly from a number of leaders in the faith community: from bishops, rabbis and imams. We seem to be all in agreement that the state should not be in the business of selling liquor at all. But we also seem to be in agreement that having the state control the sale of distilled spirits in a highly regulated way is far better than multiplying the number of retail locations by 100, 200, 300 percent or likely more.
Today we are making our position on the issue clear in our report, Off the Wagon: Why ABC Privatization is a Bad Idea. Virginia does not need to privatize liquor stores. We are releasing a policy paper clearly outlining how other states have failed to benefit from store expansions; connecting the dots on previous research that shows the social downside to privatizing liquor sales; and showing how ABC is a well-run, efficient, and reliable revenue generator for the state and provides funding for important programs that address substance abuse and mental health.
We don’t need to turn every Sheets and Wawa gas station, every corner store, every roadside bodega into a cocktail motor-through. Our communities don’t need it. Our state doesn’t need it. And the risks are too great.
P.S.: To tell a friend about this issue and what we’re doing about it, click here!
The news these days is flush with accounts of the proposed sale of Virginia’s post-prohibition monopoly of ABC stores. For generations, the Commonwealth has controlled liquor by the bottle through a state-based network of about 300 stores that do no advertising, rarely display signage, and still wrap bottles in a trademark brown paper bag. Governor Bob McDonnell wants to change that.
My friend Sen. John Chichester used to tell me that Virginia’s hold on ABC stores resulted in the state drinking in both tax and profit. In other words, liquor stores are another example of a well run government program, this time as an actual business. And a very profitable one at that! And those general fund dollars have been put to excellent use over the years, particularly in the area of mental health. Though the irony of liquor sales funding mental health programs is not lost.
Holladay showed our Blank Street Boys around his neighborhood in downtown Newport News. They shared two days with Holladay and he was willing to sit down over lunch and tell his story.
Says Viola in Lynchburg. She was interviewed as part of our Blank Street Project. She continued, “regardless of our human condition, we are blessed by almighty God.”
Viola lives in low-income housing on a single social security check each month. She qualifies for daily deliveries from Meals on Wheels. She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis 17 years ago. For Christmas, she only asks for postage to send handmade cards to everyone she knows.
The Interfaith Center has been a champion on the issue of reforming predatory lending in Virginia for several years. The issue of pay day lending and car-title lending is now getting national attention:
“Our loan is $1.50 per hundred per day, so after 5 days, $7.50,” Berry says. “It would be $107.50 is what they owe back.”
That’s an annual interest rate of 547 percent. A year after taking out the loan, you’d owe more than five times what you originally borrowed.
The predatory lender mentioned in the article above says all that needs to be said:
Berry says he would never take out a payday loan
During the 2010 legislative session, the Virginia General Assembly passed legislation to regulate car title lending in Virginia. Although far from ideal, the measure is a significant step forward for low and moderate income consumers. For starters, the bill closes the open-end credit loophole to car title lenders and establishes a new code section for their product. The bill also requires car title lenders to be licensed and regulated by the State Corporation Commission.
Equally important, the legislation sets multiple parameters for individual loan transactions. It establishes a minimum loan term of 120 days, a maximum loan term of one year, and limits loan size to 50 percent of a vehicle’s fair market value. The measure also requires car title loans to be closed-end transactions and mandates repayment in substantially equal monthly installments of principal and interest. Additionally, the bill prohibits refinancing, renewals, or roll-overs. If a borrower defaults, the lender’s only recourse is to repossess the vehicle.
The glaring flaw of Senate Bill 606 is that it continues to allow car title lenders to charge triple-digit annual interest rates, as high as 264 percent. Even this, however, is a marginal step up from the status quo where annual interest rates range from 300 to 360 percent. So, on balance, Senate Bill 606 is a measure of progress for consumers.
The name of their project says it all: Blank Street.
Like a couple of empty canvases, Ben Saunders and Joey Schihl, two film students at Virginia Commonwealth University, head out next week in a VW van named Iris to film the faces of poverty, and those overcoming hardship throughout Virginia. They are not entirely sure what they will find.
This is a guest post by Darren Rippy. Darren is a graduate student in the Master of Public Policy program at the College of William & Mary. He is a summer policy fellow at the Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy.
The new health reform law is Good Business for Virginia’s Small Businesses because it provides tax credits to lower health care costs for Virginia’s small businesses.
A piece in the Midlothian Exchange describes an interfaith effort in Chesterfield County VA:
In any interfaith engagement, the balance between practical issues and theological dialogue is not easy. Our dialogue, however, functions in a “beyond-the-talk” kind of attitude in the hope that these encounters will produce concrete results on the ground. Such dialogue has unveiled a joint community service project with the International Hospital for Children. The three faith communities are seeking to raise funds ($5,000) to sponsor a critically ill child from South America and bring that child to the one of the local hospitals for treatment.
This is exactly the kind of interfaith community engagement that Virginia needs. Faith should no longer build walls among communities. Instead it should be a conduit that connects Virginians together as they try to promote the common good.
It’s great to see that the folks in the Bon Air area of Chesterfield County are living this richer understanding of faith. It’s something we’ve seen at the General Assembly as Virginians of many faiths came together to protect health care for children, seniors and the disabled.
We hope to see more Virginians of faith stand up for the low and middle income Virginians, especially now that Gov. McDonnell is raising their taxes.
Although the maelstrom of coverage around “boob-gate” has been amusing to behold, Attorney-General Cuccinelli is right: it is a distraction. The attention this non-issue has received is completely ridiculous.
Why?
Because we have dramatically more important issues that need the public’s attention such as the $6 Million tax increase Gov. Bob McDonnell is hoisting upon over 100,000 low income families in Virginia. Many media outlets have spent resources scrutinizing a detail on a tiny lapel pin that most people wouldn’t have noticed even if it was a foot away from their face. But none of the main stream media outlets have corrected their reporting which claims that the budget passed by the General Assembly and Governor was free of tax-increases.
The Governor still has the opportunity to fix this unfortunate policy change. Until then however, this change is still on the books and with the economy in the early stages of recovery, our brothers and sisters of low and moderate means cannot afford a tax increase as Gov. McDonnell himself said so many times on the campaign trail. We hope he won’t raise taxes on low-income Virginians and we hope our friends in the media will correct this factual error.
Governor McDonnell made an announcement this morning that is good news for our most vulnerable brothers and sisters. The press release states that he will form an advisory committee to craft a comprehensive statewide housing policy. In conversations about development and transportation during this administration, affordable housing and ending homelessness will be included.
It is encouraging to hear his statement that
“affordable and safe housing is a fundamental component of healthy and prosperous communities.”
I couldn’t agree more. Individuals and families experiencing homelessness, people with disabilities, seniors and teachers, police officers, and nurses should and will be considered part of our prosperous and thriving communities. This issue touches the lives of all Virginia residents. With cost of living rising faster than incomes for the past several decades, affordable housing is harder and harder to find. When people have to move further away from where they work to find an affordable place to live, problems with transportation and pollution are exacerbated, too.
About a week ago, a Hampton School Lunch Lady known as “Miss Barbara” was buried after dying from cancer. She died early (in her 50’s) because as a low-income person, she had no access to health care and eventually gave up. Unfortunately her death came just before her life insurance kicked in so her family wasn’t even able to pay for her funeral.
Luckily, community members came together, in the best spirit of what it means to be Americans, and raised money to cover the cost of her funeral.
A great column in the New River Voice about Social Justice and Faith Communities in Virginia.
The debate about what is the appropriate role of religion in American politics has heated up in recent weeks, this time thanks to Glenn Beck and his vitriol toward social justice advocates with religious connections.
Mr. Beck, one may assume, considers the halls of Congress and our state legislatures to be the purview of lobbyists with more “legitimate” objectives than the likes of Rev. Jim Wallis of Sojourners who relentlessly pressures those holding the purse strings in government to remember the needs of the poor. In Virginia, we have The Virginia Interfaith Center for Public Policy (VICPP), and its member faith groups and justice seeking individuals who have similar designs on our General Assembly.
In other words, the Governor’s office would really prefer people not notice that the Commonwealth is choosing to raise $6Million in taxes on low income workers at the very time it ensures $10Million is available for Virginia’s manufacturers. As we often say, budgets are moral documents that speak to the priorities and values of government. Right now the priority seems to be the manufacturers lobby.
In case you haven’t read the news for the past few months, Virginia’s General Assembly has had to grapple with significant revenue shortfalls in the state budget. Just for context, since fiscal year 2007 the state has cut about $7 billion out of state revenue, and this year had to reconcile another $4 billion shortfall, which they did through cuts to the kinds of core services that Virginians rely on. While I would disagree, the reason many Democrats will publicly tell you they went with an essentially all-cuts approach because Governor McDonnell had already publicly stated that he would veto any budget that included a tax increase.
Greed may have undercut our economy but more greed will not help America rebound going forward. We need Wall Street accountability to keep American families from ever having to experience what big bankers and financial institutions have done to this country ever again. This “Great Recession” has created tremendous hardship and that is unfair for everyday people who are working so hard just to pay the bills.
This is a guest post by Sara Okos. Sara is a policy analyst with the Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis, which provides credible, independent and accessible information and analyses of fiscal and economic issues facing Virginia with particular attention to the impacts on low- and moderate-income persons.
Every year, a conservative national think tank estimates, on average, how many days residents of each state must work in order to earn what they will likely owe in federal, state, and local taxes that year. The Tax Foundation has declared today- April 13, 2010- Virginia’s “Tax Freedom Day.”
In addition to their use of some shoddy analytical techniques, the concept of “Tax Freedom Day” is particularly deceptive because it suggests that our government simply takes and takes from us. It ignores the benefits that we all receive from a functioning and adequately funded public sector: benefits like clean water and air, roads to get us from our home to the grocery store and to work, and school systems that equip us with the knowledge and skills that allow us to be productive members of society.
The news these days is flush with accounts of the proposed sale of Virginia’s post-prohibition monopoly of ABC stores. For generations, the Commonwealth has controlled liquor by the bottle through a state-based network of about 300 stores that do no advertising, rarely display signage, and still wrap bottles in a trademark brown paper bag. Governor Bob McDonnell wants to change that.
The Interfaith Center has been a champion on the issue of 
