Helping disabled veterans
Column by David Cox
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As the General Convention goes about its business in Richmond, it’ll take up a matter that everyone voted for last time. Before they do again, I hope they’ll look at a better way of meeting their objective: helping disabled veterans.
Last winter, the House and Senate passed unanimously a constitutional amendment that would exempt veterans, who because of their service to the nation were 100 percent disabled according to the Veterans Administration, from paying local property tax. As a proposed amendment, it gets another reading this winter, and if passed again would go to us voters in November.
At the time I groused about it as still yet another unfunded mandate by which the state, which usually insists local governments pay for some duty, in this case cuts into the revenues of localities: property taxes are among the few funding sources for cities and counties. I noted that all politicians oppose unfunded mandates…then all our Assembly politicians voted for one. Read more
VMI holds off High Point
Staff Report
VMI sports: www.vmikeydets.com
VMI junior guard Austin Kenon converted six straight free throws in the final 14.1 seconds of regulation to hold off the High Point University Panthers and give VMI a 94-91 win before a sellout crowd at the Millis Center Saturday night.
VMI won its first road game of 2009-2010 and handed High Point its first home loss of the season. The Keydets improved to 6-12 overall and 2-7 in the Big South Conference. High Point dropped its third game in its last four contests and now stands 10-9, 5-4 Big South.
Kenon finished the night a perfect eight-for-eight from the stripe and scored 20 points. He connected on a pair of free throws at the 14.1, 6.6, and 4.0 marks on the clock to preserve VMI’s second-half lead, which had withered away from 19 points earlier in the half. Read more
Radford gets 30 from Parakhouski in win over VMI
Staff Report
VMI sports: www.vmikeydets.com
Center Art Parakhouski scored 30 points and grabbed 11 rebounds to lead Radford to a 109-91 win over VMI Thursday night at the Dedmon Center.
VMI was led by freshman forward Stan Okoye, who produced his third consecutive double-double game with a career-high 23 points and 10 rebounds.
2008 Waynesboro High School grad Nick Gore scored six points in 11 minutes of action off the bench for VMI, which dropped to 5-12 overall and 1-7 in the Big South Conference. The Highlanders now stand 10-7 overall and 6-2 in the league.
What should it do?
Column by David Reynolds
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That’s the multi-trillion-dollar question. It is that big a question because it is one that requires all of us to answer. Yet it is directed to only one segment of our economy, the one with an obesity problem. The “it,” of course, is government.
What should government do? And are we willing to pay for what it does? Or do we prefer to use our grandkids’ weekly allowance?
Please be consistent and logical, as the Greeks taught us. Those ancient Greeks were smart. They advanced civilization. But they might not make it in today’s America. Still, I will go along with them. After all, the Greeks thought of government as a fee for service operation, that whatever government wishes to do, it – meaning we – should pay the bill. Read more
VMI rally falls short, Keydets fall to Gardner-Webb
Staff Report
VMI sports: www.vmikeydets.com
A late VMI flurry fell short, as the Gardner-Webb Runnin’ Bulldogs defeated the Keydets 92-84 in a Big South contest at Cameron Hall Saturday evening.
Trailing by nine with 1:08 to play, a three-point play by Michael Sparks cut the GWU lead to six, 84-78. After two free throws by the visitors, Ron Burks hit a three-pointer to reduce the margin to five, and an Austin Kenon trey with 31 seconds left pulled the Keydets within three. Two C.J. Hailey free throws made it a five-point game again, and Grayson Flittner intercepted a cross-court pass with 19 seconds to go to cement the Runnin’ Bulldogs win. Read more
Looking up
Column by David Reynolds
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Now let’s see if I’ve got this right. We are just into the new year and the sky has not yet fallen. Yes, I know, no one actually predicted that the clouds would fall. Nevertheless, there were those who kept saying that whatever keeps the human race on a solid footing – be it good manners or gravity – may have left us.
So they set the stage. While the sky did not fall – they said that everything else would. First, let’s go back to March 6 of last year. The pessimists, those who make a living predicting every year the return of the Great Depression, were looking pretty good. They predicted bad tidings, except for Christmas day when the markets are closed. Of course, the pessimists were wrong. On the last day of 2009 it was the bulls with the smiles. The bears? Well, you know what bears look like.
Another example on the economic front. Following World War II there were the same fears as today. Therefore Congress passed The Full Employment Act of 1946, cosponsored by my favorite Democrat, the happy warrior, Sen. Hubert Horatio Humphrey. In 1978 when the economy was again looking down and unemployment was an unacceptable 6.1 percent the goal was to reach full employment – defined as 4.0 percent unemployment – not zero! Read more
‘Y’ not?
Posted by afp on January 22, 2010 · Leave a Comment
Column by David Reynolds
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Cut spending and raise taxes are the answers usually given. The right says cut; the left says raise. But such conventional methods usually involve the old meat ax approach – one fueled by anger.
But this is not the time – it never was – for crude instruments to satisfy mob mentality. It is time for better medicine, to use a scalpel to carefully trim away low priority programs. While never a popular procedure, such trimming allows us to get to a balancing point without falling off. It is not only favored by the people, it is required by law. Consider a scalpel as a seat belt, one that prevents budgets from serious crashes.
So, if we carefully trim when deciding how best to spend our local tax dollars we will be ahead of the game. And we will not foolishly cut out the heart of government. Read more
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