VIRGINIA LEADS IN LOCKUPS, BUT IS POOR IN PARKS

Virginia is for prisons, not parks. Virginia is for transportation, not the
environment. Political claims to the contrary, Virginia is for low taxes,
low spending and low debt. That's the conclusion of an evaluation of state
spending released this week by the Joint Legislative Audit and Review
Commission.

The study was initiated by lawmakers worried that the size of Virginia
government is spinning out of control. The results ought to reassure them,
because if anything, the opposite is true. Yes, the state operating budget
quadrupled between 1981 and 2001, growing from $5.7 billion to $23.3
billion. But those are deceptive figures.

When the numbers are adjusted for inflation and population, growth averaged
2.3 percent annually. Moreover, when spending in Virginia is compared with
outlays in other states, the one place where Virginia is less than frugal
is in spending for public safety and corrections.

Virginia spent more per capita on corrections and police protection in
1999, the last year of the study, than all but two other states. Meanwhile,
the commonwealth was last -- dead last -- in per capita spending on natural
resources and parks.

If that's not an embarrassment, it ought to be. Virginia exceeded the
national spending average in only one category other than prisons: highway
construction and maintenance. That's only because localities in many other
states, but not in Virginia, pick up the road maintenance tab. Virginia
ranked 27th in per capita state spending on education, 38th in health and
public welfare, and 32nd in government administration.

Those numbers hardly qualify Virginia as a spendthrift state. It bears
remembering that Virginia would rank lower still if ability to pay were
part of the equation. In 1999 only nine states devoted less of their
personal income per capita to taxes than the Old Dominion. At a time when
business leaders across the state are lamenting under-investment in
schools, roads and the protection of natural resources, the study ought to
have an opposite effect from what was intended.

Rather than ringing their hands over the growth in government spending,
lawmakers ought to be worried that the state is not investing enough.