Del. Watts to focus on climate and taxes

Longtime House of Delegates member Vivian Watts (D) is reaching out to new constituents. Due to redistricting, three Annandale area precincts – St. Albans, Masonville, and Woodburn – have been transferred from Del. Kaye Kory’s district to the newly named 14th District represented by Watts.

Since she was first elected to the General Assembly in 1997, Watts has beaten her Republican opponents by wide margins. She doesn’t yet have a challenger for the current year.

At a meet-and-greet session on Jan. 8, Watts told community members some of the issues she plans to focus on include climate change and taxes.  

Watts vowed to fight against Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s efforts to withdraw the state from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. The RGGI is a cap and trade program that sets limits on carbon emissions from power plants, then auctions off allowances for each ton of carbon emitted.

In Virginia, one of the 11 states in the RGGI, half the proceeds go toward emergency efficiency projects to benefit low-income people and 45 percent goes to flood prevention projects.

Watts calls RGGI “a win-win because you’re cutting the electric bills of the low-income, but most importantly you’re saving energy.”

The funds produced through the payments from utility companies will help low-income people afford to retrofit their homes through such measures as weather stripping, storm windows, and attic insulation, Watts said. That will “prevent energy from pouring into the atmosphere.”

Watts also plans to work on issues around personal decisions, choice, and privacy that have been eroded following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and efforts to chip away at protections for the LBGTQ community.

As a longtime member and former chair of the House of Delegates’ tax-writing committee, Watts will be closely following Youngkin’s proposals for “billions of dollars’ worth of tax cuts whether we can afford it or not.”  

Watts touts Democrats’ success in giving counties the same taxing authority that cities already had. She expressed hope that the Board of Supervisors will enact a meals tax to provide an additional source of funding for schools, but “it won’t happen this year because of the election.”

Fairfax City, Alexandria, and other Northern Virginia cities have been able to fund all kinds of improvements as a result of that tax. “If you have never gone to Old Town to eat because they have a meals tax, you get to vote no,” Watts said.

“For counties, what matters is the real estate tax,” she said, calling for a single tax rate. That would benefit older residents as the value of their home has grown so much it’s no longer in sync with their income.

Virginia’s current income tax system doesn’t account for inflation, she said. “We have the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer. Our state tax system doesn’t recognize that.”

While Youngkin wants to cut the top rate, Watts supports raising the standard deduction. “That’s far more progressive for low and moderate-income people than cutting the top rate.”