Virginia’s Tax Avalanche: When “Affordability” Meets Reality

So here’s a head-scratcher for you: Virginia Democrats swept into power last year promising to make life more affordable for everyday Virginians. Fast forward to this legislative session, and they’ve introduced over 50 new tax proposals. Yeah, you read that right. Fifty.

It’s the kind of political whiplash that makes you wonder if anyone’s actually listening to voters anymore, or if “affordability” has become one of those words politicians say because it polls well, right up there with “working families” and “common sense solutions.”

The Worst Possible Timing

But here’s what makes this particularly jaw-dropping: the timing. Northern Virginia—where many of these taxes would hit hardest—is staring down massive federal workforce reductions. The Trump administration is in the middle of significant government downsizing. We’re talking about thousands of federal employees and contractors who are either losing their jobs or watching their colleagues get pink slips.

These aren’t abstract statistics. These are people with mortgages in Fairfax County, car payments, kids in school. Many of them moved to the region specifically for federal employment, built their lives around what they thought were stable government jobs. Now they’re facing unemployment or dramatic income reductions.

And Virginia Democrats’ response? Let’s raise taxes on just about everything.

You can’t make this stuff up.

The Laundry List (Literally)

Let’s talk about what’s actually on the table here, because this isn’t just tweaking a few tax rates. Virginia Democrats are proposing taxes on things you probably didn’t know could even be taxed. Dog walking? Yep. Dog grooming? That too. Getting your suits dry cleaned? Tax. Going to a concert or sporting event? Tax. Need counseling services? They want to tax that. Even your Amazon deliveries and Uber Eats orders could get hit with new fees in Northern Virginia.

The full list is almost comical in its scope:

• Additional local sales tax in all Virginia counties and cities
• New personal property tax on electric leaf blowers and electric landscaping equipment
• Large employer tax
• Gun and ammunition tax
• New income tax brackets
• Delivery tax targeting Amazon, Uber Eats, FedEx, and UPS in Northern Virginia
• Investment income tax
• Event tax
• Storage facility tax
• Gym membership tax
• Dog walking and grooming tax
• Counseling tax
• Digital personal property tax
• New car taxes and highway use fees
• Increase in hotel tax in Arlington
• Statewide speed cameras (not technically a tax, but tell that to your wallet)
• Vehicle repair tax
• Home repair tax

And the kicker? They’re looking at a 4.3% tax on rideshare trips, plus an additional 1.9% on top of that for trips in Northern Virginia. That’s 6.2% before you even get in the car.

The Campaign Promise That Wasn’t

Here’s what really sticks in people’s craw: Democrats didn’t just squeak into power. They picked up several seats in the House of Delegates last year, giving Speaker Don Scott a commanding majority. They control the State Senate too. And their governor, Abigail Spanberger, made affordability the cornerstone of her campaign. She didn’t just mention it in passing—it was her entire thing.

But now? Spanberger’s already told lawmakers she wants Virginia to rejoin something called the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), which would tack on fees to everyone’s monthly electricity bills. When 7News asked how that squares with making life more affordable, her office hasn’t responded. They also asked about her position on these tax increases and whether she plans to use her veto power. Still crickets.

Republicans are having a field day with this, and honestly, can you blame them? State Senator Tara Durant from Stafford County summed it up bluntly: “They did campaign on affordability, and right now, right out of the gate, that’s been the last thing that we’ve seen that’s been the focus.”

The Electric Equipment Contradiction

But let’s dig into one of the biggest contradictions in this whole mess. Virginia’s been pushing hard for electrification—get off gas-powered equipment, go green, save the planet. Environmental initiatives, clean energy goals, the whole nine yards. Now they want to slap a personal property tax on electric leaf blowers and landscaping equipment?

That’s like telling someone to buy a hybrid car and then charging them extra for owning it. Pick a lane, folks. Either you want people to use electric equipment or you don’t. You can’t simultaneously mandate environmental compliance and then punish people financially for complying. It’s the kind of policy incoherence that makes people cynical about government in the first place.

The Prepared Food Paradox: Punishing Modern Life

Let’s talk about one of the most regressive aspects of these proposals: the tax on prepared meals. Fairfax County just implemented this, and it perfectly illustrates how out of touch these policies are with how people actually live.

Here’s the setup: you can buy chicken, rice, and vegetables at the grocery store—no tax. But if you buy a prepared meal with those exact same ingredients? Tax. The logic, presumably, is that prepared food is a “luxury” and raw ingredients are a “necessity.”

Except that completely ignores reality in 2026.

Think about who’s buying prepared meals. It’s not just wealthy people being lazy. It’s single professionals working 50-60 hour weeks. It’s young couples both working full-time jobs. It’s elderly people who struggle with cooking. It’s people living alone who’ve done the math and realized that buying ingredients to cook for one person often costs more and wastes more than buying prepared portions.

Because here’s what the politicians in Richmond apparently don’t understand: cooking at home isn’t always cheaper or more practical, especially for small households. That whole chicken you’re supposed to roast? For a single person, half of it goes bad before you can eat it. Those fresh vegetables? Same problem. The economics of home cooking assume you’re feeding a family of four, not living alone or as a couple.

And let’s talk about the time investment. After commuting, working, and dealing with life’s basics, finding the energy to plan meals, shop for ingredients, cook, and clean up? That’s not laziness—that’s exhaustion. For many people, especially those working multiple jobs or irregular hours, prepared meals aren’t a luxury. They’re a necessity.

But here’s where it gets really perverse: this tax structure is actively discouraging family formation.

The Anti-Family Tax Code

Young people today are delaying having children or deciding not to have them at all, and a big reason is economics. Kids are expensive. Childcare is astronomical. Housing costs are through the roof. And now Virginia wants to make it even more expensive to feed yourself while you’re trying to save money and build stability?

When you’re a young professional trying to decide if you can afford to start a family, every expense matters. These prepared meal taxes hit hardest the exact demographic that should be thinking about having kids—young working professionals. Instead of making life more affordable so people feel secure enough to have families, Virginia is making it more expensive to exist as a small household.

Think about the incentive structure here:

• Live alone or as a childless couple? Pay extra taxes on prepared meals because cooking for one or two isn’t practical.
• Can’t afford to have kids partly because the cost of living is too high? Well, we’re going to make it higher.
• Finally decide to have kids? Great, now grocery shopping becomes more practical, but childcare will bankrupt you anyway.

It’s almost like the tax code is designed by people who have no idea how regular people live. People who’ve never stood in a grocery store at 8 PM after a long day at work, staring at a whole chicken and a bunch of vegetables, doing the mental math on how much will go to waste, how much time it’ll take to cook, whether they even have the energy.

And then there’s the practical reality: a lot of young people today never learned to cook because both their parents worked and nobody had time to teach them. Home economics isn’t taught in schools anymore. So now you’re taxing people for not having a skill that society stopped teaching.

The Demographic Death Spiral

Here’s what should terrify policymakers: birth rates are already declining across the developed world, and America isn’t immune. Young people are looking at the economics and saying “we can’t afford kids.”

They’re not wrong. Between student loans, housing costs, healthcare expenses, and the general cost of living, starting a family feels financially impossible for many millennials and Gen Z. And now Virginia wants to add more taxes on top?

The prepared meal tax is a small piece of a larger puzzle, but it’s symbolic of a system that makes life harder for people who aren’t already established with families and traditional household structures. You’re essentially penalizing people for the life circumstances that make having children seem impossible.

And it’s not just about prepared meals. Look at the broader tax proposals:

• Delivery taxes? That’s how busy working people get groceries when they don’t have time to shop.
• Rideshare taxes? That’s how people without kids get around when single-car ownership makes sense.
• Event taxes? That’s the social life you give up when you have kids anyway.
• Gym membership taxes? That’s the health maintenance you’re trying to do before you get pregnant.

Every single one of these taxes hits hardest the people who are trying to build stable lives before starting families—and makes that stability harder to achieve.

The Single Person Penalty

Let’s be even more specific: these taxes disproportionately harm single people and couples without children.

When you have a family, cooking at home makes sense. You’re cooking for four or five people, so ingredients don’t go to waste. The time investment is worth it. You probably have a larger kitchen, more storage, a rhythm and routine.

When you’re single or a couple? The economics flip. That bag of potatoes? Half will sprout before you use them. That gallon of milk? Goes bad. The bulk chicken? You’ll get tired of chicken before you finish it. And you’re living in a smaller apartment with limited kitchen space and storage.

But the tax code treats you like you’re just being irresponsible by buying prepared food. Like you should just “meal prep” on Sundays like some Instagram influencer. Never mind that you’re working 50 hours a week and barely have time to do laundry.

The people who designed these taxes—and the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors who approved the prepared meals tax—probably have families. They probably have someone at home who handles meal planning. They probably haven’t lived alone on a tight budget in years, if ever.

The Tip Economy Gets Crushed

Here’s something Richmond apparently hasn’t thought through: many of these proposed taxes target services that rely heavily on tips. Dog walkers, dog groomers, delivery drivers, rideshare drivers, service technicians—these are people who depend on gratuity to make a living wage.

What happens when you add taxes to these services? Basic human behavior kicks in. When your dog grooming bill goes up because of a new tax, you don’t magically find extra money in your budget. You adjust. And what gets adjusted? The tip.

So now you’ve got service workers getting hammered twice. First, demand drops because the service costs more overall—fewer people can afford regular grooming, dog walking, or delivery. Second, the customers who do still use these services start tipping less to compensate for the higher base price.

It’s economic reality: when the final bill goes up, something’s got to give, and it’s usually the discretionary gratuity. The state gets its cut off the top, and the worker providing the actual service sees their income shrink. The person who just bathed your golden retriever or delivered your dinner in the snow? They’re the ones who’ll feel this, not the politicians in Richmond.

And let’s be brutally honest about who works these jobs. A lot of them are second jobs. People picking up extra shifts driving for Uber or walking dogs on weekends to make ends meet. You know who might be doing these jobs in a few months? Laid-off federal workers trying to bridge the gap until they find new employment. Young people trying to save money to eventually have kids someday, if they ever can afford it.

So Virginia’s proposal is effectively this: tax the survival jobs that unemployed people turn to, make sure the workers providing those services make less money through reduced tips, and create a tax structure that punishes people for not having families while making it harder to afford starting one. Brilliant.

The Real Cost: Jobs and Small Businesses

The Uber and delivery taxes aren’t just about making your late-night burrito more expensive. There are real people driving for these platforms—side hustlers trying to make extra cash, students paying for college, people between jobs.

And here’s the dark irony: when federal employees get laid off, many of them turn to gig work to make ends meet while they search for new positions. Rideshare driving, food delivery—these become lifelines. Now Virginia wants to tax these services into oblivion, making them less viable for both workers and customers.

When you tax rideshare trips at 6.2% in Northern Virginia and tack fees onto food deliveries, demand drops. Economics 101. Fewer orders mean fewer hours for drivers. Some will just quit. And the ones who stay? They’ll watch their tips shrink as customers mentally calculate that the ride or delivery already costs more due to taxes.

Uber’s already pushing back. A company spokesperson told 7News: “As Virginia residents continue to struggle with high cost-of-living, efforts to impose new taxes and fees on rideshare and delivery services are unwise. While we share legislative leadership’s goal of funding transportation and lowering costs for Virginians, these proposals will likely have the opposite effect: increasing costs on both riders and drivers, decreasing transportation options, and harming small businesses.”

Small restaurants that finally found a lifeline during COVID through delivery apps? They’ll get squeezed too, either eating the costs or watching customers bail when prices creep up. And guess who makes up a significant portion of their customer base? Federal workers ordering lunch between Zoom meetings. Workers who might not have jobs much longer. Young professionals who can’t justify cooking for one person and are trying to save money for a future they’re not sure they can afford.

The Service Industry Squeeze

Let’s walk through what happens to a dog walker under this proposal. Say they charge $25 for a 30-minute walk. Right now, they might get a $5 tip on a good day, making it $30 total. That’s a decent side income.

Now add the tax. The base price effectively becomes higher when passed to the customer. Maybe the customer’s bill is now $27-28 after the tax is added. What happens to that $5 tip? It becomes $3, maybe $2. Some customers just round up to $30 and call it even—”well, it already costs more, so…”

The dog walker’s take-home actually goes down while the state’s revenue goes up. The person doing the actual work—often someone without benefits, without job security, working independently—subsidizes the government’s new revenue stream with their own reduced income.

Same story with dry cleaning. The person working at the dry cleaner isn’t getting rich off the base service price. They’re often working for tips and commissions. Tax the service, and those tips shrink. The worker sees less money, the state sees more.

Counseling services are perhaps the cruelest example. Therapists and counselors often work with sliding scale fees, trying to make mental health care accessible. Many clients tip their counselors or round up payments, especially around holidays. Add a tax to counseling services, and what happens? Clients who are already stretching their budgets for mental health care start cutting where they can—and that’s the tip or the rounded-up payment.

And who needs counseling? People stressed about money. People anxious about their future. People struggling with the decision of whether they can afford to have children. People dealing with the isolation of living alone. And now their therapy costs more.

The Amazon Angle

Here’s where it gets interesting. Amazon has the lobbying muscle to carve out exemptions or find workarounds. They’ve got lawyers and government relations teams whose entire job is navigating this stuff. Meanwhile, smaller delivery services and regional players? They’re stuck holding the bag.

And the independent contractors doing the actual deliveries? They’re watching their tips evaporate as customers who used to tip $5 on a delivery start tipping $2 because “the delivery already cost more.”

Virginia’s legislature is essentially picking winners and losers in the marketplace through tax policy. Big companies with lobbying power will find a way through. Small operators and gig workers? Good luck. Service workers depending on tips? You’re funding the state budget with your reduced income. Single people and childless couples trying to build stable lives? You’re subsidizing a tax structure designed for families you can’t afford to have.

These delivery and rideshare companies operate on thin margins already. They’re essentially logistics platforms trying to connect supply and demand efficiently. Slap enough taxes and fees on transactions, and the whole economic equation changes. Suddenly it makes more sense for people to just pick up their own food or drive themselves, which defeats the entire purpose of the service existing.

Death by a Thousand Cuts—While the Economy Bleeds

Let’s talk about the cumulative effect, because it’s not just one tax in isolation—it’s death by a thousand cuts. And those cuts are coming at the worst possible time.

Picture this: You’re a federal contractor in Fairfax County. Your contract just got cancelled as part of the downsizing. You’re suddenly competing with thousands of other people for fewer jobs in a market that’s about to get flooded with displaced workers. Your severance will run out in a few months. You’re trying to figure out how to keep your family afloat. Or maybe you don’t have a family—you’re single, living alone, and now you’re realizing that having kids was probably never going to happen anyway given the economics.

And now:

• Your electricity bill goes up from rejoining RGGI
• Your property taxes increase
• Fairfax County hits you with a new tax on prepared meals (which you’re ordering more because you’re too stressed to cook, or because cooking for one doesn’t make sense)
• Delivery fees on every Amazon order
• Rideshare taxes when you need to get somewhere
• Higher costs for car repairs and home repairs
• Taxes on gym memberships (which you’re trying to use to manage the stress)
• Event taxes if you want to take your kids to a Nationals game to keep some normalcy in their lives—or if you’re single, taxes on the concerts and events that are your social life
• Counseling services cost more when you need them most

For families already struggling with inflation and now facing unemployment or underemployment, this isn’t theoretical—it’s catastrophic. For single people and childless couples, it’s a signal that the government doesn’t understand or care about how you live. It’s real money disappearing from their paychecks at exactly the moment when every dollar counts.

And here’s the insidious part: as you’re cutting back on tips to service workers because everything costs more, you’re probably not thinking about the fact that some of those service workers might be your former colleagues, trying to patch together an income after losing their federal jobs. Or they’re people like you, trying to save enough money to feel secure enough to maybe, someday, have a family.

The timing couldn’t be worse for Northern Virginia residents. They’re getting hit from both sides—federal job losses on one end, state and local tax increases on the other. It’s like watching someone get mugged and then having the government show up to pick their pockets too.

Wait, We Have Money?

Former Governor Glenn Youngkin, a Republican who just left office this month, pointed out something crucial: Virginia’s government is already swimming in cash. Over his four years in office, the state generated $10 billion in surplus revenue and returned $9 billion to taxpayers. Virginia has a 15% rainy day fund reserve—near the top of the nation—and maintains a AAA bond rating.

“She’s the strongest financially she’s ever been,” Youngkin said about Virginia. “We are a AAA bond-rated state that continues to show $10 billion of revenue surplus over the last four years and tremendous growth.”

So why all the new taxes, especially now? When your residents are facing massive job losses, when federal contractors are getting their contracts cancelled, when the regional economy is about to take a serious hit, when service workers are about to see their tips decline, when young people are already deciding they can’t afford children—that’s when you decide you need 50 new revenue streams?

That’s what 7News asked Democratic leaders, including Speaker Don Scott and State Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell. As of their reporting, those leaders hadn’t responded.

The Economic Ripple Effect

Think about what happens when federal employment contracts. It’s not just the direct job losses—it’s the ripple effect throughout the entire regional economy. Federal workers eat at local restaurants, use local services, shop at local stores. Contractors employ subcontractors who employ workers.

When thousands of people lose their income, commercial real estate takes a hit. Retail businesses suffer. Service providers see revenue drop. Tips shrink across the board as people tighten their budgets. Birth rates drop further as economic insecurity makes family formation seem impossible. The whole economic ecosystem contracts. And that’s when Virginia Democrats think it’s a good time to make everything more expensive?

The counseling tax is particularly tone-deaf in this context. People losing their jobs often need mental health support. Families dealing with financial stress need therapy. People struggling with the decision about whether to have children need support. And Richmond’s response is to make it more expensive and ensure that the counselors providing this critical service see reduced tips from clients who are already financially stressed? It’s almost cruel in its timing.

Will Any of This Actually Pass?

Political science professors Larry Sabato from UVA and Stephen Farnsworth from the University of Mary Washington think most of these proposals won’t actually pass. “I think it’s important to note that a lot of what gets proposed in the legislature never comes to pass,” Farnsworth said.

Legislative sessions are full of bills that go nowhere, introduced more to make a statement than to become law. Some ambitious lawmaker probably threw everything at the wall to see what sticks, or to position themselves for negotiation. “We’ll drop the dog grooming tax if you give us the delivery tax” kind of thing. Classic legislative horse-trading.

But Sabato had a warning for Governor Spanberger: “To me, the impression is terrible, and it contradicts the theme of affordability. She has the veto power, and there’s item veto. There are a lot of things that she can employ, and they will be employed because otherwise this will end up being the central criticism of her first year in office.”

That’s political science professor speak for: “This could blow up in her face.”

The Political Bind

Governor Spanberger’s in a real bind here. She either vetoes this stuff and fights with her own party, or she lets it through and owns the consequences. She has the veto power and item veto authority—plenty of tools to employ if she wants to stay true to her affordability message.

Durant thinks lawmakers aren’t listening to constituents. “They should really be listening to their constituents a lot more, because these tax increases are going to hurt those who are struggling the most,” she said.

And who’s struggling the most right now? The federal workers and contractors facing layoffs. The service industry workers who depend on their spending—and their tips. The families trying to navigate an uncertain economic future. The gig workers trying to make ends meet who’ll watch their tips evaporate even as demand for their services drops. The young people who want to have children someday but can’t see how the math could ever work. The single people and childless couples being punished for life circumstances largely driven by economic insecurity.

But the damage might already be done in terms of public perception. When voters hear that the party they elected on affordability is proposing to tax literally dozens of everyday services and products—including walking your dog and going to therapy—while thousands of their neighbors are losing their jobs, that’s hard to walk back. When service workers realize these taxes will likely mean smaller tips and reduced income, that’s a voting bloc that won’t forget. When young people realize the tax structure is designed to penalize them for not having families while making families less affordable, that’s a generation that’s paying attention.

Republicans will be running ads about this for years: “They said affordability. They meant taxes. They did it while you were losing your job. They made sure your tips went down too. And they made it harder for your kids to ever afford kids of their own.”

Reading the Room

What Virginia really needs is someone to stand up and say: “We have a $10 billion surplus. Our finances are strong. Our residents are facing massive federal job losses and economic uncertainty. Service workers are about to see demand drop and tips decline. Young people are already choosing not to have children because they can’t afford them. Maybe—just maybe—we don’t need 50 new taxes right now. Maybe we should be making life more affordable so people feel secure enough to start families.”

That’s called reading the room. That’s called basic political common sense. That’s called giving a damn about the people you represent—including the service workers whose livelihoods depend on tips, the young people trying to build stable lives, the singles and couples navigating a world not designed for their household size.

But that takes political courage, and political courage is in short supply when your party controls everything and assumes they can do whatever they want.

The real test will be whether any of these proposals actually become law. And if they do, whether Governor Spanberger will use her veto power or let them through. Because if she campaigned on affordability and then signs off on taxing people for walking their dogs, taking their suits to the dry cleaner, and ordering dinner through an app—all while they’re dealing with unemployment or the fear of it, all while knowing it’ll drive down the tips that service workers depend on, all while creating a tax structure that punishes people for the demographics of modern economic insecurity—that’s not just a tough sell. That’s political malpractice.

For now, Virginians are watching and waiting to see if their elected officials remember who sent them to Richmond in the first place. Because there’s a big difference between what politicians say they’ll do and what they actually do once they’re in office. And this gap between campaign promises and legislative reality? When it comes while people are losing their jobs and service workers are watching their tips decline and young people are calculating whether they’ll ever be able to afford children? It’s not just hard to ignore—it’s impossible to forgive.

The irony is almost painful: They won by promising affordability and are governing like they have a mandate to tax everything that moves, at exactly the moment when their constituents can least afford it—when the workers providing these services can least afford to see their tips shrink—and when the tax structure itself discourages the family formation that used to be the foundation of the American middle class.

The Question Nobody’s Asking

Here’s the question that should be front and center but somehow isn’t: If Virginia has a $10 billion surplus and thousands of residents are about to lose their federal jobs, shouldn’t the conversation be about economic assistance rather than new taxes? Shouldn’t we be talking about job retraining programs, extended unemployment benefits, support for displaced workers, protecting the tip-based income that so many service workers depend on? Shouldn’t we be asking why young people feel they can’t afford to have children and what we can do to change that?

Instead, Richmond is debating how to tax dog walkers, ensure their tips go down in the process, and make prepared meals more expensive for the people who can’t practically cook at home.

It’s the kind of disconnect that makes people lose faith in government entirely. And maybe that’s the saddest part of this whole story—not just the bad policy, not just the terrible timing, not just the impact on service workers’ tips, not just the anti-family incentive structure—but the erosion of trust that comes with it. The message these policies send to young Virginians is clear: we don’t understand how you live, we don’t care about the economics that prevent you from having families, and we’re going to make it harder anyway.

That’s not governance. That’s negligence.