Prince William, Virginia (December 13, 2006) -- Several members of the House of Delegates from Northern Virginia called upon Governor Tim Kaine to dedicate all new state spending in 2007 to transportation. Kaine is scheduled to deliver to the General Assembly money committees this Friday his revisions to the state's current budget enacted earlier this year.

The delegates, Bob Marshall, Michele McQuigg, L. Scott Lingamfelter, Jeffrey Frederick, Jackson Miller, all of Prince William, as well as David Albo and Timothy Hugo of Fairfax, Mark Cole of Stafford, and Clifford Athey of Warren, noted that the two-year budget adopted in June by the General Assembly contained record-breaking spending levels for education, health care, environmental protection, and law enforcement, but left transportation largely unaddressed.

“Our commuters will know how serious Governor Kaine is about fixing transportation by how much of the new spending he wants to use for roads and mass transit,” said Marshall. “Let's put 100% of the expected billion-plus dollars we'll have available to spend towards transportation,” he added.

The group expressed a sentiment that Kaine seems to say one thing and do another. Athey, Chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, said it is time for Kaine to show the commuters how much he really wants to help them, and what level of importance he places on transportation. “The Governor needs to back up his rhetoric with real action, and if transportation is really the voter's top priority, the Governor should make it his top budget priority,” he said.

Lingamfelter, Frederick, Cole, and Hugo are each members of the House Finance Committee and will be among those present on Friday in Richmond for Kaine's presentation of his spending priorities for 2007.

“Governor Kaine says transportation is Virginia's top and most urgent priority. We agree. Let's put our money where our mouth is and use every penny of new spending in 2007 exclusively for transportation,” Frederick said.

Lingamfelter said, “If the Governor really wants to help teachers, who are also commuters, he will use the budget surplus to build roads to them get to work on time.”

“Can the Governor honestly say that we need a tax increase to address Northern Virginia traffic problems, yet keep spending hundreds of millions, even billions of surplus dollars on things other than transportation. It's transportation’s turn to benefit from years of surplus revenues,” Hugo stated.

Albo said, “This points us in the right direction. It adds almost one-billion to the $4.6 billion 2007 transportation budget.”

The Delegates said they plan to continue to push for targeted spending on congestion choke points; reform of the Virginia Department of Transportation; and better linking land use to transportation planning. In addition to the one-billion they are proposing to budget in 2007 to transportation, they hope to use Virginia's AAA bond rating to build projects faster and less expensively. The state's bond rating allows for Virginia to borrow at below market rates.