This month the leaders of the Democratic Party have presented us with another Constitutional Crisis. Apparently Vice President Richard Cheney went quail hunting with a friend in Texas and had a hunting accident. Cheney shot at a covey of quail and his friend was hit with some of the bird shot. The crisis happened when The Vice President did not immediately call the New York Times and all the network news agencies. Apparently the local media were told immediately and the rest of the media the next morning. How dare the Vice President not inform the national media right away so they could get a news crew there and get it on the 5 o'clock news? I think I would have been more concerned about my friend than the nightly news reporter's deadlines.

Doesn't it seem that the Democratic Party declares a Constitutional Crisis every other week? You would think Harry Reid and Howard Dean would have something else to talk about. But maybe that's the point. The national Democratic Party has nothing positive to say. No agenda, no issues that concern the voters. When the strength of a party's message is simply "I don't like the other guy" something is wrong.

Meanwhile back in the commonwealth of Virginia the respective parties are debating in the General Assembly what the best way to solve our transportation problems is.

The Democrat Governor, Tim Kaine, has produced a huge tax increase to fund more road projects in NOVA and the rest of the state. It took Kaine about 4 days to break his promise not to raise taxes. And the Republican Caucus in the House of Delegates has offered a 2.5 Billion dollar transportation improvement package. WITHOUT RAISING TAXES. All the money comes from existing revenues.

Apparently the House of Delegates thinks the huge 2 billion dollar surplus belongs to the taxpayers and will be fixing our roads with this cash. In addition the Republican caucus will issue about $1.2 billion in bonds to establish a revolving loan fund to further fix our road problems. It does not stop there. The Republicans have also noticed you can not fix the transportation crisis in Virginia without reforming VDOT and that is what they intend to do. And to finish it all off they will begin to give local governments tools to link transportation to growth.

I think I will opt for the Republican plan without any tax increases. Hopefully we will get a plan out of the General Assembly that starts to fix these problems and get traffic moving again.

It is great to be in a state that has politicians that can focus what needs to be done rather that another made up Constitutional Crisis.