If you want to understand WHY the Virginia Dems support all these taxes, here’s a very cogent explanation (if you’re smart enough to follow it) from Scott Surovell, leader of the Virginia Senate Democrats:

We could just tell localities like Fairfax County you need to pay more for Metro to keep the cost of Metro down so the fares don’t become totally unaffordable. And what that means is that Fairfax County would have to raise its real estate tax, which is currently the highest tax in all of Northern Virginia – thirty percent higher real estate tax than Loudoun County. They’d have to raise it even further to pay Metro. Or we could come up with some other tax sources, of things that are sort of linked to Metro, and tax tourists, for example, things like hotel stays, where we could tax parking, which also, to some extent taxes tourists or other people that don’t live in the county. You come up with some other taxing sources to pay for it, so that the homeowners aren’t the only ones paying. And so that’s what we’re trying to figure out right now.

Editor’s note: We have a wild and crazy idea: Why not just cut Metro’s expenditures?