Increase the minimum wage to $6.15 an hour in 2007 and $7.25 an hour in 2008.

• Virginia’s minimum wage of $5.15 was established by the U.S. Congress in 1997. Since then the cost of living has increased 27 percent.
• Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia have established minimum wages higher than the federal minimum wage. Six states did so in the November 2006 elections.
• A minimum wage worker in Virginia earns $9,893 each year after deductions for Social Security and Medicaid, an amount barely exceeding the federal poverty level of $9,570 for one person and $5,888 below the federal poverty level for a family of three.
• An April 2006 Pew Research Center poll found that 83 percent of Americans support increasing the federal minimum wage to $7.15 per hour.

Fund training for law enforcement personnel to prevent biased policing.

• VOP supports Senator Stolle’s budget amendment to increase funds for Virginia’s law enforcement academies for more effective training to reduce biased policing for new trainees and in-service training. The amendment would also help fund improved biased-based training provided by Sheriffs and Police Departments that adopt a model policy.
• Police work that discriminates based on race or ethnicity wastes public resources, weakens trust in our justice system and unfairly treats citizens. Funding more effective training can help reduce biased policing in Virginia.

Make the state tax system fair for low- and middle-income Virginians.

• VOP supports passage of Governor Tim Kaine’s proposal to raise the tax filing threshold for low-income Virginians, eliminating their tax liability and creating a less regressive tax structure.
• In Virginia, the lower one’s income, the more one pays in state and local taxes as a percentage of income. In fact, the wealthiest Virginians pay on average only 6.9 percent of their income in taxes while the poorest citizens pay on average 10.4 percent of their income in taxes.
• The current tax system isn’t fair and it hurts working families. VOP supports a tax reform package that provides tax relief to 95 percent of taxpayers while the top 5 percent would pay a modest increase in taxes. The package would include increases in standard deductions and personal exemptions, create a working families tax credit and update tax rates and brackets.

Repeal the Payday Loan Act and prevent interest rates higher than 36 percent.

• In Virginia, payday lenders are allowed to charge $15 for every $100 of a payday loan, which works out to an annual percentage rate (APR) of 390 percent for the typical two-week loan.
• The VOP supports House Bill 1684 introduced by Delegate McClellan to repeal the Payday Loan Act and require providers to comply with the current 36 percent usury cap for other financial institutions. A 36 percent limit would also be imposed on payday loan providers by House Bill 1799 introduced by Delegate Cosgrove. This bill would stop payday lenders from charging immoral rates, just as Congress imposed a 36 percent cap on such loans to all military personnel.
• The average Virginia borrower pays $681 interest to borrow $355 in less than seven months.
• The average Virginia borrower obtained 12.8 payday loans in 2005.
• Last year, more than 90,000 Virginians had more than 13 payday loans from the same lender. Those people are caught in the nightmare of a debt trap with a recurring cycle of loans from which they cannot escape. Virginians deserve protection from such abuses.