Steve

"We need roads so people can be home making babies!"

"What if the Rapture comes -- and it will come suddenly -- and we're stuck in traffic and can't get to see our families!"

And if that fails . . .

"If the roads are too crowded, the cockfighting industry might die!"

Best lines:

[The] grand "compromise" *** is a relatively insipid response to the state's most urgent crisis, one that would apply a Band-Aid to a problem that years of neglect have turned into a sucking wound.

Instead it attempts to make do with bits of this and scraps of that -- a $10 hike in vehicle registration fees; higher fines for bad drivers; half of future budget surpluses that may or may not materialize. The result is what you'd expect: too little and too late.

But the essential problem remains: The GOP-backed package expands the overall pie of revenue very little while pitting transportation funding against every other essential function of state government -- public schools, higher education, health care, public safety and human services.

What's more, the Republican plan -- and that's precisely what it is; just two of the 12 conferees who crafted this bill were Democrats -- provides too little money. Just $200 million in new funding would go toward road maintenance statewide; that is is about half of what's needed. The $400 million in fresh revenue that Northern Virginia could receive (from new taxes and fees the region would theoretically levy on itself) is not a pittance, but is inadequate when stacked against the $700 million that transportation planners have said is critical just to keep traffic from getting worse in Fairfax, Prince William, Loudoun and the region's other jurisdictions.

But with so much room for improvement to the single most important piece of legislation facing him, the governor is right to stand his ground.