Virginia’s public school students deserve a leader who will tax the wealthy
Quinton Robbins
Don’t tell me what you value, show me your budget, and I’ll tell you what you value. — Joe Biden
For the past decade we have seen an increase in attendance of Virginia’s public schools, yet a decline in funding. Virginia’s state legislature used the Great Recession of 2009 to justify devastating cuts, yet when the economy recovered those same leaders did not take responsibility to restore funding levels. As a result, Virginia — one of the wealthiest states in the country — has one of the lowest rates of per pupil funding and teacher pay. In fact, our funding for public education does not meet the Standards of Quality which is required by Virginia’s state constitution. If the Great Recession was used to justify cuts once, any Virginian can understand the fears of parents, students, and educators watching the COVID-19 crisis. Virginia’s young people deserve high quality public education that provides training in civics, critical thinking, multicultural learning, and gives students the tools to make a meaningful life for themselves.
I played a leadership role in Richmond For All’s campaign against the Dominion Coliseum — the so-called “Navy Hill” project. That project also claimed it was going to help public education, although the reality was it was going to take money from public coffers that could have gone to public education. Before that, there was the lottery that was going to “save public education.”
It just seems that every time a politician wants to do something, they pretend it will be good for public education. And I’ve thought to myself: what’s the line I can draw? What’s the criteria I can use to determine who is serious? Here it is: Are they willing to tax the wealthy? No candidate for public office is serious about funding public education unless they’re talking about taxing the wealthy.
There is a direct corollary between Virginia’s regressive tax structure and the fact that Virginia is ranked so low on per pupil funding. Compare Virginia’s top tax bracket of 5.75% to other similarly wealthy states: New York is 8.82%; Vermont is 8.75%; in New Jersey, it’s 11.8%. All of these other states have much higher per-student spending and deliver a much higher quality education.
Democratic Gubernatorial Candidates Terry McAuliffe and Jennifer McClellan are both running on improving our public education system — McAuliffe launched his campaign from a school. Neither candidate is serious about public schools, however, unless they are willing to demand everyone pay their fair share; that means taxing the wealthy. I’ve looked at their track record and I’m concerned.
Governor McAuliffe proposed a cut in corporate taxes in 2015. He cited a need to compete with our neighbor North Carolina who in a similar period cut their tax rate from 5% to 4%. In this dangerous race to the bottom, even Republicans balked at the chance to cut taxes for the wealthy since it would likely result in an unbalanced budget.
On the trail, McAuliffe constantly brags about Virginia being number one for business. He argues that we can simply fund our public education system by attracting big corporations with tax giveaways — like the relocation of Nestle to Northern Virginia. However, that math doesn’t check out. The total share of corporate tax revenue has shrunk significantly over the past 40 years, by 2019 accounting for a humble 6% of revenue. The money just isn’t there.
McAullife also claims to have made “the largest investment ever in K-12 education,” but after adjusting for inflation he fails this test. The reality is our state’s schools were underfunded and deteriorated under McAuliffe’s first tenure as Governor. They cannot survive another.
While Senator McClellan’s record is better than McAuliffe’s, there is reason to be concerned. One of Senator McClellan’s very first votes after being elected to the House of Delegates was to eliminate the estate tax — a tax structure that by design leans only on our state’s wealthiest residents. Because of her vote, estates worth more than $2 million pay nothing in estate taxes, amounting to a tax giveaway of up to $160 million each year. In the case of the ultra-rich Mars family whose heirs Forrest and John Mars were living in Northern Virginia at the time, the vote forfeited up to $1.6 billion in tax revenue alone from the transfer of a single estate.
Senator McClellan deserves credit for putting forward bills that called for funding the Standards of Quality in the 2020 legislative session. But, if you follow the Virginia General Assembly, it becomes clear that any proposal that requires high-dollar funding will ultimately get killed unless the necessary political fights for funding are fought alongside it. Legislators who want bills to pass plan for that part. Unfortunately, McClellan’s record is mixed and there’s no guarantee she’ll actually make the necessary choices.
During the 2009 financial crisis, then Delegate McClellan penned an op-ed in the Richmond Times Dispatch where she stated that public education must be cut to balance budgets. And cut they were; per student state support for K-12 education was 8% lower during the 2019–2020 school year than during the 2008–2009 school year after adjusting for inflation. Virginia faces significant challenges recovering from the economic fallout of COVID-19. If McClellan did not support our schools during the last financial crisis, there is no certainty she will do so now.
If we increased taxes by a mere 1% on incomes over 100k, we would raise an estimated one billion dollars in revenue per year. We must challenge any candidate for state office to commit to fighting for our public schools, and that means being willing to increase income taxes on the wealthiest, rather than balancing budgets on the backs of our students and teachers. For far too long, we have been governed by the old Virginia Way — an unholy alliance between moneyed interests and state government. It’s time for new leadership in Virginia, and that means electing leaders who will finally, fully fund our schools.
