Budget Surplus Shopping

Gov. Bob McDonnell announced in late summer that Virginia had a surplus of $545M. That had us thinking how we would improve NoVA. While at first we thought we could take on a lot of projects, we quickly found the bank running dry.

iPads
For the 362,510 students in NoVA, we would buy each an iPad, and have almost $365M leftover.

Taxes
We wanted to pay everyone’s property tax for a year, but we could only afford one of the counties, or all of the cities.

Metro
Costing approximately $100M per mile, we’d get a metro line to Fort Belvoir from the Springfield station.

Weight-loss programs
We would pay for five years of the Weight Watchers program for the 20.3 percent of Northern Virginia residents who are obese.

Bike Share Program
Annual membership to Capital Bike Share for all NoVA residents (with over $400M leftover). Currently the program is only in Arlington, we’re hoping our generosity with the state’s coffers will have the company expanding.

19% of Foreclosures
NoVA has approx. 9,000 foreclosures, coming in with almost a total of $2.8B in value, we’d buy up just a small piece to alleviate the burden.

2,400 Flying Cars
Yes, they are an option since the U.S. National Highway Safty Administration approved Terrafugia’s model (costing approx. $227,000) in July. We’d set it up ZipCar style so everyone could have some fun.

Sources: Virginia Department of Education, U.S. Census, Tax Foundation, Weight Watchers, Apple, Capital Bike Share, Virginia Department of Health, Fox news, RealtyTrac

Tags: budget surplus, flying cars, Northern Virginia, Northern Virginia Magazine, NoVA, shopping