VIRGINIA BLUES: Expect Democrats to Unleash a Tax Onslaught
Leaf blowers, guns, dog walking, dry cleaning—full government control means everything gets taxed in Democrats’ Virginia.
It's a truism that when Democrats gain a trifecta—full control of a state’s executive and legislative branches—they tend to tax every human activity. Virginia Democrats are aiming to exceed the stereotype by taxing animal activity, too.
Fresh off Gov. Abigail Spanberger's January inauguration, Democratic lawmakers have flooded Richmond with over 50 new tax proposals. This barrage includes everything from vehicle repairs and gym memberships to dog walking and pet grooming.
Democrats seldom tell voters exactly how much they intend to tax them while campaigning for their votes. Instead, they launch an full-scale assault on the wallets of unsuspecting residents after getting elected. In Virginia, this is now possible because there's no Republican governor left to veto any of these proposals.
Under Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R), Virginia enjoyed four years of genuine fiscal restraint. He pulled the commonwealth out of the costly Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), saving families hundreds of millions in electricity bills. He eliminated the grocery tax and doubled the standard deduction, among other tax relief policies. Despite foregoing all that revenue, he still left the commonwealth with a $2.7 billion surplus, negating any need for future tax hikes if the government spends responsibly. These policies strengthened Virginia as a good place to start or relocate a business and raise families.
With Democrats holding the governorship and majorities in both chambers, however, the guardrails are now gone. Spanberger's administration has already moved to rejoin RGGI, effectively imposing a backdoor carbon tax that will cost Virginians an extra $500 million per year—that's $1,100 per household.
Although she hasn't publicly endorsed every wild proposal coming from her party, her toeing the Democratic Party line on RGGI and local cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement do not look promising.
This much is clear—unified Democratic control guarantees these ideas become law if she chooses to support them.
Taxing Everything that Moves or Can Be Moved
The scope of these proposals is staggering. Democrats are gunning for sales taxes on routine services people depend on daily. Besides those already mentioned, Democratic proposals include new taxes on guns and ammunition; home repairs; dry cleaning; counseling; streaming services like Netflix; delivery taxes on services like DoorDash, Uber Eats, FedEx, and UPS orders; and even electric leaf blowers.
To their credit, they at least are not sparing their own voters. Some of these proposals hit Democrat-heavy Northern Virginia the hardest—a region already losing residents because of the absurdly high cost to live there.
Democrats have proposed an additional 1.9 percent rideshare tax for that region, on top of the 4.3 percent statewide tax they want to charge per rideshare trip. Delegate Vivian Watts’ HB 979 would create two additional state tax brackets, taking 8 percent from those who earn over $600,000 and 10 percent from those who earn over $1 million. This would bring Virginia’s highest tax bracket to nearly double that of Maryland’s, undoubtedly driving many of the state’s wealthier residents in Northern Virginia across the state line.
Feeding the Government Beast
None of this helps the residents of the commonwealth; rather it feeds an insatiable appetite for more government programs. Instead of using the budget surplus to give back to taxpayers or save for a rainy day, Democrats plan not only to deplete it but to run a deficit if they don’t raise more taxes.
Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell (D) told a local TV station his party plans to use the extra cash to spend more on Medicaid, subsidize high-spending counties like Fairfax, and budget for inflation. But inflation is down to 2.7 percent. With a nearly $3 billion surplus, the only reason to budget that much would be if former President Joe Biden were still in the White House and on his historic inflation run.
Republicans have countered with genuine tax relief bills. These eliminate the car tax, repeal the local grocery tax, and lock in permanent standard deductions—commonsense ideas the Democratic majority regularly shuts down in committee.
Spanberger campaigned as a pragmatic moderate focused on lowering the cost of living. Yet her party shows no sign of letting up its high tax and spend agenda, which mirrors California better than Virginia—a historically fiscally conservative state regardless of which party was in power.
Virginians were sold a vision of affordability and fiscal responsibility, not this avalanche of new costs on life's essentials and the discretionary spending every middle-class family can for now afford. These proposals reinforce just how radical Virginia Democrats have become—not just on social issues but also fiscally. Republicans must fight them every step of the way and work to reclaim the legislature before these harebrained schemes become permanent burdens on the commonwealth. The stakes could not be higher. Virginia's coveted position as an economic powerhouse and business magnet may depend on it.
Jacob Grandstaff is an Investigative Researcher for Restoration News specializing in election integrity and labor policy. He graduated from the National Journalism Center in Washington, D.C.
Republished with permission from Restoration News.
