Watchdog of the Taxpayer’s Dollar Since 1956

Vol. 58, No.1 July-August-September 2016

THE BULLETIN

President’s Message:

The Meals Tax and the School and County Budget

You have probably received the Fairfax County pamphlet “2016 Meals Tax Referendum: It’s Your Decision.” It was printed and mailed to 400,000 Fairfax County households at taxpayer ex-pense. The pamphlet says that a meals tax is needed “…to reduce the county’s dependence on real estate taxes…” Of the $99M in expected meals tax revenue, 70% will go to schools and 30% to the county. The pamphlet states that the county’s share “ … will be dedicated to county services, capital improve-ments and property tax relief.”

The November 2016 ballot question states that the meals tax is “ … For the purpose of reducing dependence on real estate taxes.” Through these statements, the county misleads voters into believing that the meals tax will result in lower real estate tax hikes. Note, however, that the pamphlet and ballot question leave the amount of tax relief unspecified.

The meals tax revenues will not even pay for next year’s raises and projected increases for pensions and medical insurance. The county is forecasting a $52M increase for 3.5% raises and benefits. The schools are forecasting $146M for raises in ex-cess of 3.5%, plus benefits. In the years after a meals tax, real estate taxes will again increase faster than household income, school programs will still be in jeopardy, and budget crises will continue to pay for 3.5% across-the-board raises, pensions with retirement at age 55 and Cadillac health plans.

The meals tax is a one-year Band-Aid, not a solution.

This is summarized in NOMEALSTAX.COM, a new website posted by the Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance. Please publi-cize it. We do not have tax dollars to reach 400,000 house-holds. Also, we invite you to attend the FCTA’s annual lunch-eon at Grevey’s restaurant where the topic will be: "The Meals Tax: A Band-Aid, not a solution."

We are aware of only three forums in which an elected official defended the meals tax against an opposing speaker (Supervisor Pat Herrity). In contrast, The Fairfax Committee of 100 had a meals tax discussion where Pat Herrity spoke against but a former school board member spoke for the meals tax. Unfortunately, rather than raise the points mentioned here, most of the arguments against the meals tax have been the restaurant-association arguments, for which the county has a detailed rebuttal. The Mt. Vernon Citizens Association is having a forum where a restaurant executive is speaking against but a past-president of a teachers’ union is speaking for. The McLean Citizens Association is having a forum where incum-bent Dranesville Supervisor Foust is speaking for the meals tax but no one is speaking against!

So the FCTA is sending an invitation to all incumbent supervi-sors and school board members to see if any incumbent is will-ing to speak in favor of the meals tax at the FCTA luncheon. Come to the luncheon and see if any of your elected officials

(Continued on page 2)

FCTA Annual Luncheon Saturday, October 15, 2016

11:30 AM to 2:00 PM Grevey’s Restaurant

8130 Arlington Blvd (Route 50 at Gallows Road) Falls Church, VA 22042

Topic: The Meals Tax A Band-Aid, Not a Solution

Guaranteed speaker:

Arthur Purves, FCTA President Invited speakers:

Members of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and School Board

Meal: Only $20 Chicken Florentine: Tender chicken breast with fresh

spinach, mushrooms, penne pasta in light cream sauce — or —

Grilled Salmon: Served with herb butter, rice, and vegetables

Also

Roll, water, and Coke, Diet Coke, coffee or tea RSVP with meal choice: w.t.peabodysr@gmail.com

FCTA Election at the October 15 Luncheon

The officers and at-large members of the Fairfax County Tax-payer Alliance will be elected at the October 15 FCTA lunch-eon. The current nominees are:

President Arthur Purves

First Vice President Thomas Cranmer

Second Vice President Bill Peabody

At-Large Arthur Purves

At-Large Thomas Cranmer

At-Large Bill Peabody

At-Large Fred Costello

At-Large Tim Hannigan

At-Large Perry Young

Fairfax County Taxpayer Alliance P.O. Box 356, Fairfax, VA 22038

www.fcta.org 2015-2016 President: Arthur Purves

The Bulletin is the newsletter of the Fairfax County Taxpayer Alliance. It is published quarterly, with occasional special editions. The purpose is to provide information to member communities; federal, state, and local officials; and other interested persons. Articles reflect the view of their author and may be reprinted with the use of the following citation: “The Bulletin of the Fairfax County Taxpayer Alliance”.

FCTA Bulletin July-August-September 2016

Page 2

are willing to “do democracy” by engaging in public debate with us about the meals tax.

The schools say that large raises are necessary because the Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) salaries are not competi-tive. An undated FCPS report states that since July 1, 2014, FCPS lost 316 teachers and 417 applicants to surrounding school districts. An exit-survey report states that 57% percent of teachers voluntarily leaving FCPS cite salary as a reason for leaving.

However, the same reports also state that 70% of teachers cit-ed personal reasons for leaving, 48% percent cited workload, another 48% cited leadership support, and 44% cited burnout. Of the 316 teachers who left for surrounding districts, the re-ports do not say how many went to higher paying jobs. While Arlington County Public Schools (ACPS) pay more than FCPS, ACPS is much smaller than FCPS (4,600 employees vs. 23,900 employees). It is not likely that many FCPS teachers switch to ACPS.

FCPS compensation is competitive with the private sector. FCPS reports that for the 2015-2016 school year, the schools reviewed 15,102 applications for 1,477 job openings.

If FCPS does significantly raise salaries, then the teacher un-ions in neighboring jurisdictions will threaten to go to Fairfax unless their supervisors increase taxes for their salaries. Then the Fairfax teacher unions will say that FCPS is falling behind again and demand more taxes and raises, etc. This has been going on for years. The resulting tax increases have not helped the Fairfax economy.

The county meals tax pamphlet acknowledges that the county is in an economic downturn and has not recovered from seques-tration. Meals tax supporters agree with the April 2, 2016, Washington Post article that Fairfax County is beginning to “fray” at the edges. A 9/24/16 Washington Post editorial sup-porting the meals tax states that Fairfax County office vacancies are at a 25-year high; federal procurement is 14% lower than in 2012; and job growth is anemic. This is after 16 years during which real estate taxes have been increasing three times faster than household income.

To revive the Fairfax County economy, the supervisors and school board need to address the causes of higher taxes. The major cause is raises. The best employees should be attracted and retained through merit pay, retention bonuses, and ad-dressing the issues of leadership, workload (unnecessary ad-ministration), and burnout. It is too expensive to pay all employ-ees the premium necessary to retain the best employees.

The next major cause is benefits. The supervisors commis-sioned a January, 2012, study, Fairfax County Post-Retirement Benefits Review. The study recommends that to cope with tightening budgets, the county should consider lower-premium high-deductible health care plans that qualify for Health Savings Accounts or move to health care exchanges. Regarding pen-sions the study recommends tighter eligibility for employees who move on to other employment while drawing retirement benefits. It also recommends moving to defined-contribution plans and removing the Social Security supplement feature, which provides more generous benefits for employees retiring before they are eligible for full Social Security benefits.

Finally, the timing of the meals tax referendum is interesting. In 2014 the county convened a Meals Tax Task Force, which had four meetings in May and June. At the first meeting it was un-derstood that the Task Force at the end of its deliberations

President’s Message (Continued from page 1) would vote on whether to recommend putting the meals tax to referendum. However at the second meeting, the Co-Chairs Tom Davis and Kate Hanley announced that there would be no vote. After the Task Force adjourned County Chairman Sharon Bulova announced that there was so much opposition to the meals tax that it would not be put on the 2015 ballot. (It was legally too late to put a referendum on the 2014 ballot.) Super-visor Foust mentioned at a town hall that he understood that the Task Force was opposed to a referendum. However, in the deliberations the Task Force majority seemed in favor of a ref-erendum.

Then it was announced that the meals tax referendum would be put on the ballot for the presidential election. This was a sur-prise because the meals tax would have had a better chance of passing in the 2015 supervisors election, where only 185,000 of the county’s 650,000 registered voters turn out. In such a low-turnout election the 34,000+ county and school employees and their families are a significant proportion of the electorate, which would have favored the meals tax — it gives them raises.

For more information, see http://nomealstax.com.

Maybe there was a reason to put the meals tax on the presiden-tial ballot. With the incumbent president not running, 2016 was expected to be a tight election. Virginia is a swing state. Virgin-ia’s governor was chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign. Fairfax County decides the outcome of Virginia. So a possible reason for putting the meals tax on the presidential ballot even though it lessened the chances of approval, was to give the 34,000+ Fairfax County and school employees an in-centive to turn out in the presidential election. Whether it wins or loses, the real effect of the Fairfax County meals tax referen-dum might be to elect Hillary Clinton president.

So be sure to vote on November 8. Vote against the meals tax so the county is forced to cut expenses.

Thank you, Arthur Purves

Who Does the Meals Tax Hurt the Most?

The impact of the meals tax disproportionately hurts the poor and the elderly. The beneficiaries are primarily the employees of the county and school governments.

According to the restaurant association and the county govern-ment, 72% of the revenue is expected to come from Fairfax County residents, including retirees and poor working families with different work schedules and multiple jobs. The impact of a 4% meals tax increase on these two groups of people is equiva-lent to raising the real-estate tax by $267 on the low-income people and $163 for all-income people, low, medium, and high. That's a big expense for low-income people.

The funds raised will be used primarily to cover a one-year in-crease in the salaries of school and county employees. So the meals tax gives money to government employees whose in-comes are considerably greater than the incomes of many of the people paying the taxes. Turnover of school and county employees is slightly less than the 10% seen in the private sec-tor. So it is not clear that salary increases are needed to retain the other employees.

If the schools gave 4% raises to the 9,000 classroom teachers -- those doing most of the teaching -- but no raises to the 25,000 other school and county employees, no meals tax would be necessary.

For a more complete analysis of the tax impact, see: http://www.fcta.org/Pubs/Reports/2016-05a-fac.html

FCTA Bulletin July-August-September 2016

Page 3

Clinton vs. Trump

1. Trustworthiness Clinton: Did not tell the truth about Benghazi. Did not tell the truth about private server and classified data on the server, making it an easy target for hacking. Transmitted classified information over Internet while in office. (As president, she will have access to all classified information.) Got large foreign and domestic donations to Clinton Foundation while in office. In-creased personal net worth by $150,000,000 over 15 years (starting from zero) with a job for only four of those years. 33 people associated with the Clinton political life have died myste-riously. Has many ties to lobbyists, insiders, and wealthy, some of whom (e.g., Soros) are anti-American. Trump: Has no consistent ideological standard. Changes po-sition on issues. Not a professional politician. 2. Immigration Clinton: Wants to: admit 65,000 Syrian refugees in 2017; develop comprehensive immigration reform with path to citizen-ship; defer action on immigrant children and parents; continue birthright citizenship (anchor babies). Trump: Wants to: stop immigration from Syria and other Mus-lim countries until intense vetting procedure is up and running; build wall with increased border patrol; use e-verify; end birth-right citizenship; end chain-immigration via relatives; require immigrants to repudiate Sharia Law and seek assimilation into U.S. society. 3. National defense Clinton: Wants to: curb runaway government costs; fund military innovation; allow women drafted and in combat posi-tions. Sees no nuclear threat from Iran or North Korea. Trump: Wants to: fund military to make it extremely strong; destroy ISIS. 4. Foreign Policy Clinton: Wants to: maintain cutting-edge military; strengthen our alliances; cultivate new partners; stand up to aggressors; defeat ISIS; enforce Iran nuclear agreement. Trump: Wants to: use foreign business contacts in diplomacy. 5. Homeland Security Clinton: Wants to: spend $1B to train police to reduce ra-cial bias; curb gun usage; pay for body cameras; increase DOJ budget to investigate discrimination cases; transfer Internet control to international body. Trump: Wants to: build the wall; require extreme vetting before taking refugees; monitor suspicious mosques. 6. Education Clinton: Wants to: increase funding for free community college, early Head Start, universal pre-K, child care, child-care worker salaries, early-grade teacher salaries, and pre-school parental instruction; support Common Core; fight against Pa-rental Choice in education. Trump: Wants to: have education controlled locally; remove Common Core; fund Parental Choice in Education 7. Energy Clinton: Wants to: develop renewable energy resources, especially solar-electric; cut fossil-fuel usage (especially coal); reduce substantially human contribution to climate change. Trump: Wants to: develop all energy resources so as to be-come energy independent.

8. The economy (jobs) Clinton: Wants to: remove tax breaks for companies that leave the U.S.; increase income taxes on wealthy and corpora-tions; fund infrastructure, manufacturing, research and technol-ogy, clean energy, and small businesses; promote profit shar-ing; raise minimum wage. Trump: Wants to: renegotiate treaties to make them balanced; put tariffs on products from former U.S. companies; reduce cor-porate and individual taxes; reduce regulations; provide tax deduction for child-care expenses. 9. Government budget Clinton: Wants to: increase income taxes on wealthy and corporations; increase infrastructure spending as did Roosevelt. Has no statement on balancing budget or taxing those already wealthy. Trump: Wants to: reduce taxes to stimulate the economy as did Kennedy and Reagan; improve economy; balance budget. Has no statement on taxing those already wealthy. 10. Equality Clinton: Wants to: expand rights for LGBT community, handicapped. Trump: Wants to: require equal pay for equal work. 11. Religious Liberty Clinton: Wants to: enforce LGBT rights over religious rights (not allow conscientious objection); force religious institu-tions to fund services opposed to institutional religious belief. Trump: Wants to: allow religious rights to prevail over LGBT rights in sales and services. 12. Welfare Clinton: Wants to: provide relief for higher costs of child care and housing; increase spending in communities with gen-erational poverty. Trump: Wants to: hold welfare cut-free; fund via improved economy. 13. Social Security Clinton: Wants to: expand social security by taxing wealthy. Trump: Wants to: hold social security benefits cut-free, funding by improved economy. 14. Healthcare Clinton: Wants to: continue Obamacare; improve VA. Fa-vors government as single payer. Trump: Wants to: allow vets to go to any doctor; let VA com-pete with other medical institutions; repeal Obamacare; allow insurance competition across state lines; allow tax deductible health-savings accounts. 15. Gun control Clinton: Wants to: reduce access to guns. Trump: Wants to: enforce current gun laws; make right-to-carry laws national; improve screening. Says guns needed for self defense. 16. Social mores Clinton: Wants to: promote abortion on demand throughout the world; consider transgenders as normal; fund Planned Parenthood; institute government funding of abortion. Trump: Wants to: limit abortion to crisis cases; defund Planned Parenthood; subject media to libel laws for false reporting.

(Continued on page 4)

FCTA Bulletin July-August-September 2016

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17. Voting Clinton: Wants to: restore felons right to vote; not require voter ID; amend Constitution to limit campaign funding of candidates. Is against billionaires buying elections. Trump: Wants to: have voter ID; investigate voter fraud. 18. Governance Clinton: Wants to: appoint justices who use liberal interpreta-tion of the Constitution regarding rights, regardless of race, gen-der, sexual orientation, political viewpoint; prevent corporations, special interests, and billionaires from buying elections; use executive orders, regulations, selective enforcement of laws. Trump: Wants to: appoint justices who follow the literal inter-pretation of the Constitution; reverse Obama's executive orders.

Clinton vs. Trump (Continued from page 3) Measuring Fairness

There is little doubt that everybody should be given an equal opportunity to succeed in life; however, determining whether everybody is getting an equal opportunity is quite difficult.

The graph in a Reston Connection article (http://www.reston-connection.com/news/2016/aug/10/one-step-one-fairfax) shows the average-wage disparity among racial groups for the years 2000 and 2012. The Fairfax County Public School ad-ministrators similarly cite the racial disparity in SAT scores (the “performance gap”). The blame is attributed to the income level of the home from which the students come. Schools with chil-dren from low-income families have lower than average SAT scores. Much taxpayer money is spent in trying to get the aver-age SAT scores to be the same for all racial categories.

Here are the views of the FCTA bulletin editor (Fred Costello). Inherent in these comparisons is the assumption that, on aver-age, all students have the same ability, regardless of racial or any other category. A similar assumption would be that all stu-dents have the same basketball ability, regardless of category.

Notice that the Connection article and the SAT scores are based on the outcome, not the opportunity. The FCPS says it seeks equal opportunity but, in reality, it looks for equal out-come. It concludes that, when the outcomes are not equal, the opportunities are not equal. This is a false conclusion because it does not take into consideration mental ability.

The schools, and the Connection, could better judge the oppor-tunities if they compared the outcomes for people of equal men-tal ability. IQ is one measure of mental ability. The SAT has been designed to measure IQ; therefore, the SAT shows differ-ences in mental abilities. Performance is a function of mental ability and learning opportunity. To measure opportunity, test results should be adjusted for mental ability. For example, per-formance should be compared for students of equal mental ability (equal IQ). The SOL tests measure knowledge; so we might compare SOL performance for students having the same SAT scores (www.fcta.org/Pubs/Reports/2015-02a-fac.pdf). Aggregated data for schools show an extremely strong correla-tion between SAT and SOL scores; therefore, the learning op-portunities appear to be equal and the present educational pro-grams, sufficient if not extravagant.

The foregoing is debatable. Arthur Purves, FCTA president, thinks that the SAT gap will be eliminated if the curriculum taught the basics, extra help was given to non-Asian minorities, family structures were improved, and incomes increased.

Virginia Voter Fraud

The Daily Signal on-line news service has reported that there are hundreds of non-citizens who are registered to vote. See: http://dailysignal.com/2016/09/26/hundreds-of-noncitizens-

on-voting-rolls-in-swing-state-of-virginia/

As a check on the Daily Signal data, a random survey of 50 homes in one Herndon neighborhood revealed that 13% of the registered voters no longer live at the address listed in the vot-ing rolls.

The Fairfax County Board of Elections uses the following sources in an attempt to keep the rolls accurate:

The Urbanization of Fairfax County

Fairfax County has a plan to “urbanize” the county. The plan calls for large increases in population density by building high-rise (FAR 5) apartment buildings. A recently passed amendment to the Zoning Ordinance permits high-rise commercial buildings, including apartments, in 22 commercial business centers throughout the county. To encourage developers to build at these centers, the Zoning Ordinance reduced the requirements, relative to requirements at other sites, pertaining to on-street parking, open space, parking places, buffering (screening) from adjacent properties, and setbacks.

The ZOA and citizen comments can be found at: http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/planning/zoa_re_pcd-

prm_dist_and_other_031016.pdf A map of the areas currently being considered for re-development under this ZOA can be seen at:

http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/dpz/zoningordinance/proposed/pdc-prm-crd.pdf

Hats Off to Tom Cranmer

FCTA First Vice President Tom Cranmer was our most political-ly active member since May 2016. He: Sent FBI Director Comey a 16-page letter with details and

evidence of Hillary Clintons' crimes since she was Secretary of State (see http://acdemocracy.org/amicus-brief-in-supporting-fbis-quest-in-identifying-corrupt-public-officials). The FBI ignored 90% of the crimes Tom listed.

Sent Treasury a FOIA request for documents on the Clinton’s being bribed by the Russians so Russians would own 20% of U.S. uranium resources. Treasury did not provide any info.

Made a video of Pence's speech in Fauquier County and posted it on YouTube.

Developed DVD on decreasing recidivism and drug abuse per meetings Tom attended in Richmond. Will be on Fairfax Public Access, Comcast in Richmond, Vimeo, and YouTube.

Made and posted videos on legal reasoning that Title IX rec-ognizes only boys and girls as genders in education.

Attended FCPS board meeting. Made video of the presenta-tion on increases in the school board budget and video how the meals tax allocation of 70% to FCPS is not fixed.

Provided BOS with an analysis showing real estate taxes would have to go up 17% to cover costs of the Metro renova-

(Continued on page 5)

FCTA Bulletin July-August-September 2016

Page 5

Recent Postings to the FCTA Website

In addition to postings of articles found in Virginia and national news sources, the FCTA website (http://www.fcta.org/Pubs/archivelist.html) has the following articles by FCTA mem-bers, published since the June 2016 bulletin. Take a look:

2016-xx-xx ~U.S. Congressional Contacts, Key Votes: Including email addresses where available.

2016-08-28 ~Why NOT to vote 3rd-party in the U.S., by David Swink

2016-06-07 ~Letter to FBI RE Hillary Clinton's crimes at the State Dept, by Tom Cranmer

Less Taxes, More School Choice

Spiraling? Whole word reading? What are these terms? These are methodologies used in Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) for, respectively, math and reading. For many students these methodologies are not effective. Is there any wonder that educational tutorial centers, such as Kumon, are greatly growing businesses in Fairfax County?

There are methodologies, such as “drill and kill” and phonetic reading that work better with most pupils. Wouldn’t it be nice if FCPS focused on these techniques? But FCPS seems more concerned with socially engineering bathrooms, rather than improving the math and reading of FCPS students. The real shame is not that FCPS uses these methods, but that parents, except for the wealthy, do not have the option to explore other schools or learning environments that may be best for their chil-dren.

Many parents feel that their children are trapped in the public schools. They pay state and local taxes with a large part of the latter dedicated to the public schools. If they send their kids to private schools or homeschool, the parents do not recoup their tax dollars spent on the public schools. In a sense they pay twice. Once for the public system in the form of taxes and again for private school in the form of tuition (or learning materi-als for homeschoolers).

During the last legislative session in the Virginia Assembly, an educations savings account bill was introduced that would allo-cate 90% of the state money sent to a public school for a pupil instead to be put into an account for use by the parent if their child is withdrawn from the public-school system. This money could be used for educating the child in a school of the parent’s choice, such as private sectarian school, non-sectarian school, or homeschool. In Fairfax County, this money would be about $2,200 per pupil per year. This would also be a bargain for the public schools, as the public schools currently spend about $14,000 per pupil per year. With parents complaining about trailers used for classes and overcrowded classrooms, some parents could take their students out of the public school and leave the remaining $11,800 for the remaining pupils, thereby relieving overcrowding in the schools, reducing classroom size, increasing resources for the remaining students, and improving public education.

Despite a version of the education savings account bill passing the Virginia legislature, this bill was vetoed by Governor McAuliffe. If we can elect a governor that is concerned about students and improving the quality of public education, we can pass a bill and give relief to both parents and the public school system. Unfortunately, we must wait until 2017 before we can vote for a student-friendly governor; however, Donald Trump’s campaign strongly supports parents’ choice in education, in-cluding education savings accounts such as McAuliffe vetoed.

Taxes for FCPS’ Family Life Education

The following letter was sent by Fred Costello, FCTA At-Large Board Member, to the members of the Fairfax County School Board on September 6, 2016 — before Karen Garza resigned from the Superintendent position. The letter describes how your taxpayer dollars are being spent to mislead our children.

The FLE program needs to be improved. Children raised by their mother and father in a stable marriage fare much better and cause less trouble in school and in society; however, the FLE program does nothing to encourage stable marriag-es. The present FLE program is not about family life. It is about sex life. Even so, it omits much about sex life, includ-ing the psychological impact of sexual intercourse and the relationship between sexual intercourse and love. It teaches nothing about love and the personal sacrifices necessary in the practice of love.

Instead of teaching the dignity of human beings and the re-spect they deserve, the present FLE program teaches, over and over again, how to minimize the damage of extra-marital sexual intercourse. It does not teach the great benefits of restricting sexual intercourse to be within marriage. The les-sons must be revised to teach beneficial behavior, pointing toward excellent behavior, not marginally safe behavior. The current lessons seem to assume that, for human beings, the rutting season is all year long, that people cannot control their sexual passions. The FLE program gives no means or mo-tives for controlling the passions.

The FLE program should emphasize not only beneficial be-havior but also the availability of forgiveness. Because some students are already sexually active, the program should teach repentance and reform. Remember Sodom and Go-morrah. The people did not repent and the cities and the people within them were annihilated. Remember Nine-veh. The people repented and were spared. In light of terror-ism, biological warfare, and nuclear proliferation, man himself can cause mass annihilation.

You are our society’s leaders. You should be leading our society to a more noble existence, improving family life. If you lead the students astray by suggesting they can avoid the harm of extra-marital sexual activity, you will be held account-able either here or hereafter. Remember the “millstone tied around the neck”. Justice will be served.

A group of parents of public-school children just completed a review of each lesson for each grade. A summary of their eval-uation can be found at http://parentandchild.org/. Of the 91 lessons, 16% were deemed safe for children, 44% were deemed possibly unsafe such that parents should review the lessons to determine if their children should be opted out, and 40% were deemed unsafe so children should be opted out. The review is interactive, so parents can determine the reasons for the ratings.

tion and other spending. Sharon Bulova replied that she will tax residents by other means.

Wrote BOS opposing meals tax. Distributed to voters and precinct captains in Dranesville rea-

sons to oppose the meals tax. Participated in meetings of Virginians for Quality Health Care. Led opposition to development at Seneca Road and

Georgetown Pike based on increased traffic congestion.

Cranmer (Continued from page 4)

Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance

P.O. Box 356

Fairfax, VA 22038

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alerts@fcta.org Permit 1337

The Fairfax County Taxpayers Alliance analyzes Fairfax County, Virginia, and Federal budgets. We publish the FCTA Bulletin, which explains budg-ets, exposes excesses, and offers solutions. We also maintain a website (www.fcta.org) with much commentary. Use this form or join online at www.fcta.org. We need your help to reach more taxpayers. For additional memberships, simply enclose a check with the new member's name, ad-dress, and email.

Current members: Please renew if the date on your mailing label is before July 1, 2015. Thank you! ____ Enclosed is my annual FCTA membership dues of $25 (mail to the return address, above). ____ I'm enclosing an extra contribution of $ ________ ____ I would like to volunteer. Please contact me.

Name(s) ______________________________________

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2016-10-04

Some of What FCTA Has Been Doing on Members’ Behalf

Bill Peabody’s Twitter messages have increased the number of FCTA followers to a record high. Jim Ruland hosted a SEEDS booth at the Liberty Farm Festival answering questions regarding parental choice in education. Rob Whitfield continues to attend many transportation meetings, mostly testifying for cost effectiveness in transportation projects. Tom Cranmer’s activities on behalf of taxpayers were so extensive that they are listed beginning on Page 4.

See Page 5 for a list of reports by FCTA members that are available at http://www.fcta.org/Pubs/archivelist.html.

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