Lawmakers brief Chamber members on year to date

Businessmen and women applauded just one part of Lynchburg-area legislators’ report Wednesday on this year’s General Assembly session.

“There is no general tax increase” in the budget bill, said Sen. Steve Newman, R-Lynchburg, drawing the only round of hand clapping during a breakfast meeting of the Lynchburg Regional Chamber of Commerce.

Rex Hammond, the chamber’s CEO, opened the meeting with a literary — and political — reference.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” Hammond quoted from Charles Dickens’ “A Tale of Two Cities.” In Hammond’s version, the cities were Richmond and Washington, this winter.

“In Richmond, elected officials were hard at work, making difficult decisions to act responsibly and balance the state’s budget,” Hammond said.

“Just 100 miles away, elected officials were hard at work spending trillions of dollars while continuing their daily assault on business and sinking our country into massive debt and taxation,” Hammond said.

When systems fall out of balance, the nation’s founders gave citizens a way to make “a substantial course correction every two years,” Hammond said.

The business group also heard reports Wednesday from State Sen. Frank Ruff, R-Mecklenburg County, and Del. Scott Garrett, R-Lynchburg.

Newman gave the audience an update on electric rates, a possible charter school in Lynchburg, and the federal health-care bill’s likely impact on state government.

Legislators have asked for a detailed report from Appalachian Power Co. about reasons for its rapid increase in electric rates.

“I will tell you ahead of time, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) is responsible for something close to 50 or 60 percent of those increases,” Newman said.

He also said that people opposed government regulations that cause rate increases by a 92-8 margin during a telephone town-hall event he held with 4,000 constituents on an interactive polling hookup. The event was held during the winter when many homeowners were getting electric bills of $400 and up.

Newman was a key legislator in the Assembly’s approval of Gov. Bob McDonnell’s three education bills, including one that would help establish charter schools.

“I’ve already had a request from a local school, I won’t mention its name yet, that is interested in a charter school,” Newman said.

He also said an organization had contacted him about establishing a laboratory school, which is usually a college-affiliated, high-school-level program that another of McDonnell’s bills would boost.

“Their imagination of how we can take the education funding we have and make public education even better is quite tremendous,” Newman said.

He also said the health-care bill that President Obama signed into law Tuesday “is going to be devastating to us” in Virginia government.

“The net effect of this bill, from the preliminary numbers, is that it will cost us more than what we cut out of public education, $700 million, and Medicaid, $300 million, by the year 2020,” Newman said.

Ruff told the chamber group that McDonnell is re-evaluating state and local government, asking whether programs and taxing systems make sense in today’s economy.

Ruff and Newman said McDonnell plans to call a special session of the Assembly to look at new ways of governing.

“That is the great thing about this recession,” Ruff said. “It is going to force us to say, ‘Why are we doing what we are doing,’” such as taxing real estate the same way it was taxed in the 1700s.

“How can we use taxpayer dollars more efficiently?” Ruff said.

Garrett told the crowd that public reaction to a proposed cut in state funding for arts agencies led him to believe arts should be regarded as an economic development tool and not just a quality-of-life issue.

“I had 1,983 emails about arts” after the House of Delegates proposed to cut state support entirely by 2012. In the final budget, most of the funding was restored.

“What I heard, loud and clear, from our business partners is that arts are what brings businesses into our community,” Garrett said. “I absolutely agree with that.”