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Politics and Taxes
Virginia is one of the states with a governor's race this year and we're having some problems getting the candidates to give us examples of how they'll raise money. We have a vast budget deficit and we really need more transportation money. The Democratic candidate hasn't been very firm about it in any way, and the Republican candidate wants to sell the liquor stores (which isn't enough money and can only be done once).
I know a perfect way to raise more than enough money, but I think it will be decades if not longer before we would do it. Virginia has always been a tobacco state, even though we have recently had programs to get farmers to raise other crops or move to other businesses. We have the lowest cigarette tax in the country; the tax is so low that people can (illegally) buy cases of cigarettes and sell them in other states and make a big profit just from the difference in taxes.
So here's how we fix our budget deficit and get good transportation: Raise cigarette taxes.
