Well its official, the Commonwealth of Virginia refuses to allow Northern Virginia decide what it wants to use its own money for.
The senate and house now have a reconciled budget, which democrats except for turncoat PWC state senator Colgan voted against. Why did they vote against it? Because the compromise that democrats offered was to simply be able to shift money away from highway projects IN Northern Virginia only and instead use that same money (no additional funding) to pay for silver line instead. Now if you know how much of the state funds are derived from northern virginians (we basically subsidize areas of the state that dont make any money to build their over-sized and underused highways), we were basically begging to have a little bit of control over the 20% of the money that we would see back on the taxes we send to the state. The rest of the 80%, we as Northern Virginians, have evidently become accustomed losing to the rest of the state. But evidently the GOP still thought it was better for political reasons to object to Mass Transit, even though it would literally have ZERO impact on our budget and our their constituents projects.
So here we are, a politically restrained, but economically more powerful region continuing to be gerrymandered out of our fair share in the state house. From here we know that what happens now will dictate the next generation for our counties, whether we will continue to obey Richmond’s demands or whether we will take back control over our own planning, budgeting, and future. I for one am ready to get back 100% of our own budget, and as it has always been, it’s not about how much money we want to spend, it’s about what we want to spend it on. Northern Virginia and Richmond have never been so polarized in our views of what a sustainable and well planned region should be. 
While Richmond continues to court industrial giants which want tax breaks, loose regulations, and quick access for lobbying the state house, Northern Virginia continues to promote clean businesses, health care research, high-tech, and appropriate regulations to assure a fair marketplace. More importantly while Richmond has continued to convert it’s operational and well planned city into Atlanta 2.0, Northern Virginia is attempting to change its path on to the right track… pardon the pun.
Am I pissed? Yes, but the bigger question is are you?