Stephanie Minter made the fatal mistake of riding a bus in Fairfax County. On Feb. 23, shortly after stepping off her bus, Abdul Jalloh stabbed Stephanie to death. Jalloh shouldn’t have been at that bus stop at all. He should have been in jail, or on a plane out of the country. An illegal alien from Sierra Leone, he had been arrested more than 30 times, including for violent crimes like stabbing and beating strangers. He also had a final order for removal since 2020.
For months, Fairfax County Police had been urging the Soros-funded Fairfax County Commonwealth Attorney, Steve Descano, to take Jalloh’s potential for violence seriously and keep him behind bars. Jalloh, they said, was going to escalate and kill someone if given the chance – it wasn’t a matter of if, but when. Instead of listening to law enforcement, Descano’s office let Jalloh loose to harm again.
Virginia and the Biden administration failed Stephanie Minter, and she won’t be the last victim of the soft-on-crime and open-border policies of the Left.
But while Virginians were reeling at the news of more violence at the hands of illegal aliens with long criminal records, Richmond was hard at work addressing the real priorities – taxing mattresses. Gov. Spanberger signed House Bill 86 into law, which implements a fee/tax on mattresses to address “mattress waste.”
Despite running on affordability, Democratic lawmakers have also proposed and are debating several other new taxes, including delivery taxes on FedEx and Amazon purchases, ride-sharing apps, food delivery, dry cleaning, dog grooming, concerts, ammunition, gym memberships, counseling, home and auto repairs, online services like Netflix and cloud storage, and more.
Virginia’s leaders are willing to tax everyday essentials – even sleep – but unwilling to step up to protect citizens from repeat violent offenders.
The optics look ridiculous, but the timing of all these proposals is also peculiar. The Commonwealth of Virginia has had nearly $9 billion in budget surpluses over the last four years, including $2.7 billion when Gov. Youngkin left office, and plenty of funding in reserves in the Revenue Stabilization Fund.
With a healthy budget to work with, this would be the perfect time for Richmond to lower taxes and focus on other statewide priorities, including further reducing crime and the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, neither of which are addressed by expanding taxes on retail sales. It also does little to attract new people and industries to the commonwealth.
Gov. Spanberger was elected because she ran as a moderate, someone who wanted to pursue commonsense policies and address the issues facing families across the commonwealth. To meet that expectation, public safety has to be a priority – and undoubtedly a higher priority than addressing mattress waste. Prosecutors must keep repeat offenders behind bars. Violent criminals in the country illegally need to be handed over to ICE.
What happened to Stephanie Minter was a completely avoidable tragedy that deserves far more attention from Richmond than finding an endless supply of new revenue for a state already facing a budget windfall.
