Taxes

We need someone who will work to reduce taxes and expenditures and hold our government accountable. It is time to quit listening to career politicians who claim to care about us but do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING when it comes to taxing our neighbors out of our state.

The State Legislature needs to right-size the State budget, reduce expenditures, and return budget overages and savings to the people. Our tax brackets need to be updated so those with lower incomes are not in higher tax brackets. There is no valid reason that someone who earns $20,000 a year is in the same tax bracket as someone who earns $1 million a year.

Introduce a Taxpayers Bill of Rights – I support a taxpayer’s Bill of Rights to require voter approval for any new taxes, tax rate increases, or changes that increase tax revenue. If there is excess revenue, the excess would be required to be returned to taxpayers. This would force government officials to exercise fiscal and fiduciary responsibility and restraint to cut waste out of budgets rather than increase or impose new taxes the people oppose, such as the Fairfax County meals tax, in order to fund more government.  Similar to Colorado’s TABOR legislation this would limit the amount of revenue local and state governments can tax, collect, and spend.

Eliminate Virginia’s Car Tax - I strongly support eliminating Virginia’s car tax. This issue comes up every election cycle and like far too many issues ends up as nothing more than talk hiding behind political gobbledygook rhetoric.  It’s time to get this done and put every politician on record in support or opposition.

Cut Expenditures and Return the Budget Surplus - Virginia has seen surpluses of Billions of Dollars (YES BILLIONS) over the last several years and Legislative Sessions. Yet our legislature rather than take a look at cutting our massive spending budget and lowering our taxes, instead uses the majority of it for pet projects and to increase expenditures and the burden on our people. At a time when fellow Virginians are struggling and can use every dollar our state and local governments demand more and more of our income. When will we finally say no more? Let’s make a stand and end this cycle come November.

End the Taxation of Military Pensions – Virginia is one of only seven states that fully tax military pensions. 33 states do not tax military retirement benefits while ten others offer varying levels of discounts. It’s time to review how we tax and take care of our First Responders and Military members and their families. Our government should put an emphasis on serving those who serve us.

Affordable Housing / Property Rights

Northern Virginia has a severe affordable housing crisis. This is a key driver in the exodus of young families and individuals leaving our county and state. While career politicians offer political rhetoric, the reality is this is another government created problem that once again supposedly needs more government to solve. Simply put, our housing crisis is a result of overregulation through excessive permitting fees, zoning restrictions, and licensing. There is no valid or rational reason why permitting costs for building a new home in Virginia are ten times what they are in North Carolina.

Zoning- Zoning regulations prevent the development of additional lower cost housing. We have a large surplus of office and commercial space that could and should be converted into affordable housing. Our legislature needs to incentivize re-development of these buildings by easing restrictions on zoning and permitting such projects.

Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU)- Restrictions on accessory dwelling units need to be eased. Simply put it’s your house and your land; you’ve worked and invested in your property so why should you be prevented from adding on an ADU if you adhere to local building codes? ADU’s offer a simple solution to affordable housing both for extended families and renters. It would allow our youth and seniors the affordability to stay in the communities they call home. Most importantly our region has come together to offer what I feel is world-class support for those with disabilities or special needs. Sadly, this typically exists for our youth in the form of services up to graduation from high school but what then? ADU’s provide families with an alternative that would allow those with needs to maintain an active and self-sufficient lifestyle while still having the family support in addition to services needed. We need to limit the restriction imposed on such additions.

Business

We saw the damage allowing Richmond unfettered power can cause during the Pandemic. We watched as businesses closed and employees found themselves out of work with little or no notice. We watched as what was a serious health crisis got used long term for political purposes and positioning while our people suffered the loss of family, employment and self-dependence.

While both old parties blame each other for failed national policies and priorities, they don’t take accountability for the primary cause of businesses’ decisions to flee our state. Quite simply, overregulation and taxation are hurting our economy, costing us jobs, and forcing the ongoing exodus of businesses and employees with the State Legislature’s complicit support. State and local governments continue to impose heavy burdens on both small and large businesses through increased regulations, permits, fees, and taxes to make up for failing budgets.

As your Representative I will always fight for our businesses and workers at all times rather than falling in line with national party politics, policies, and rhetoric. I will work to reduce the burdens of overregulation and taxation on business and launch legislative initiatives to limit the impacts of permitting and licensing that can be imposed on our startups and contractors.

Term Limits & Ballot Access

One of the biggest challenges facing our communities today is tribal politics being pushed by our current two-party system. The current system works to divide us as neighbors, as families, and as friends by pushing an “either you are with us or against us” narrative.

The time of common and respectful discourse amongst neighbors is sadly becoming a thing of the past. Meanwhile career politicians remain in the same office for multiple terms and decades, often accomplishing little for us while focusing on what their party wants. The voters don’t truly get a say in the process – let's be honest, realistically your options are to pick between the two candidates the parties allow you to; often a choice between the lesser of two evils, as the saying goes, that will simply push their national party interests over the needs of their constituents.

We absolutely need Representatives in Richmond who will call for reasonable term limits to end these districts that are handed down like royalty after decades long runs.  Representatives who will work to ensure ease of ballot access for all third parties and independent candidates so that we, the people, can truly have a choice and say in our future.

Education/Parental Rights

Parental rights as they relate to education has become an extremely controversial topic the last several years, especially here in Northern Virginia. At the simplest level if we remove the political rhetoric often thrown out from both parties it comes down to a parent’s right to be informed and have a say in their children’s education. Our local school boards have become Political Activist agencies who feel they know what is best for our children without regard for our varying cultural, religious, and family practices. We need to change this course and turn the parenting duties back to parents so our educators can focus on things like Math, Science, and History.

Parental Notification/Communication- Schools should be required to keep parents informed of interactions with their children outside of academic performance. We, as parents, give an assumed amount of informed consent, trust, and privilege to our schools by enrolling our children. School counselors and administrators should be required to notify us of any meetings with our children outside of classroom instruction and hall monitoring to keep us informed. While the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) covers basic principles we need to mandate better communication to our parents on matters outside of academic performance.

School District and Boundary Changes - In many cases (especially in Northern Virginia) parents often make hard decisions based on local school districts. From choosing a home, mortgage, debt, etc. to sacrificing personal and professional opportunities just to provide their children with educational opportunities. Changing school districts and boundaries have a major impact on those investments and too often are done by school boards with little to no true regard for individuals impacted. We need to return this control back to the people and mandate that any boundary adjustments must be put on the ballot for taxpayer approval before being implemented.

Create Educational Competition- As Libertarians we believe competition creates both innovation and often leads to excellence. A lot of the issues with the current educational system stems from a lack of competition or alternatives for parents. Two ways to incentivize competition are through tax rebates and more choices:

1 - Every student removed from our public school system takes a burden off the taxpayer and the school’s budget. We need to incentivize that by providing a rebate to parents who choose to enroll their children in alternative and private schools.

2 – There are only nine charter schools in Virginia. In comparison our neighbors in Maryland have 49 and DC has 135 charter schools. The reason for the disparity is simple. In Virginia local school boards get to approve charter schools in a discretionary manner.  Do any of us truly believe that school boards will approve competition against themselves? We need to set specific state standards and guidelines for an approval process

Defend Our Guard

I support Defend the Guard legislation that would prohibit our National Guard units from being deployed into active combat without a formal declaration of war by Congress, as provided by the U.S. Constitution.  The federal government too often provides material aid and support to belligerent nations and those in active wars while the military industrial complex gets wealthy. That is why it is more important than ever that we defend our brothers and sisters, our sons and daughters, who volunteered for the Guard to specifically protect Virginia and our communities from being deployed into harm’s way in current and future undeclared wars.

There is a time and place for our Guard to be in combat, my own grandfather landed in Normandy with the Blue & Grey of the 29th -the Virginia and Maryland boys. I myself served as a paratrooper in two separate conflicts. If our fellow Virginians wish to serve in combat, they have the regular forces in which they can enlist. But when they enlist in our Guard, they are volunteering to serve and defend our neighbors, our families, and our communities in addition to defending against attacks on our Nation. They are not enlisting to be world police that the current Two-Party Plutocracy that rules us lends out to the highest bidder- it needs to stop once and for all.

Dave Crance on the Issues

Libertarian Democracy

Libertarians believe that in a perfect world there would be no need for government, but as such a world doesn’t exist, government should remain as limited and localized as possible, belonging to the people. At all times individual liberties and freedoms should be protected within a government that answers to its people, not special interests, corporations, or national political parties. This is the America our founders envisioned.

More urgently than ever we need a Representative in Richmond who will protect our local communities and personal rights above all else. It is clear that the current two-party dominated political system is failing the people. The people’s interests are no longer being represented. We need someone in Richmond who will keep the executive office, the state legislature, and local governments out of our homes, our businesses, our healthcare decisions, and most importantly out of our wallets. It is time to send someone to Richmond who truly cares about our cost of living, our youth, our elderly, our disadvantaged, and our veterans.  Someone who will take clear and decisive action to make living in Virginia affordable and who is not beholden to party, corporate, or special interests. Someone who is accountable to the people. That accountability is why I ask for your vote.