This article originally appeared here, at washingtontimes.com
James Walkinshaw, Fairfax County supervisor and candidate for Virginia’s 11th Congressional District seat, has, according to his LinkedIn profile and political website, never run a business a day in his life. This lack of experience, however, does nothing to curb his confidence that he knows how to arrange hauling solutions better than Fairfax County residents and the 20 experienced haulers serving them.
His solution: Replace all free market trash services in Fairfax County with a one-size-fits-all, government-run scheme of unified sanitation districts.
Mr. Walkinshaw is not the sole author of this plan, but as the chair of the Environmental Committee and the disciple of Gerry Connolly, who unsuccessfully pushed the plan two decades ago, he has arguably been its most vocal proponent. Not content with controlling and destroying our schools, food, farms, health, health care, energy, elections, borders, public safety and cars, the socialists are now going after yet another area, employing the ever-useful climate “crisis” as the pretext.
Trying to improve the environment is good, as is Mr. Walkinshaw’s alleged goal of trying to provide “higher quality at a lower price.” However, this plan shows no evidence that it will do either, and there are three good reasons to reject it.
First, it’s thoroughly undemocratic. For all Mr. Walkinshaw’s performative ranting about President Trump’s “five-alarm” threat to democracy, Mr. Walkinshaw’s desire to replace the free choice of 433,000 households with the will of 10 supervisors constitutes an actual threat.
Consider the evidence for his claim that county residents are “desperate” for Big Brother to rescue them from the evils of the free market: 3,000 responses to a survey. In a county with 433,000 households and 1.2 million residents, that’s 0.69% of households and 0.25% of citizens. This, apparently, is Mr. Walkinshaw’s idea of democracy: powerful elites taking away individual choice at the alleged urging of a tiny minority.
At the town hall where I saw the plan presented, the responses were unanimously negative. This probably explains why Mr. Walkinshaw and his political allies moved the public hearing from June 24 to Oct. 14, after the special congressional election. The plan is political kryptonite for Mr. Walkinshaw, and he knows it, particularly when his opponent, Stewart Whitson, has the good sense to oppose it.
Second, it’s destructive of local businesses. The waste hauling firms that service the county — Champion Services, Nightingale Trucking Co. and Flag Disposal — stand to lose livelihoods that support families, including a father and his daughters and an elderly woman who just lost her husband.
Mr. Walkinshaw claims to have spoken to the victims of his plan, but those with whom I talked told me he has either never contacted them or that when he did, they told him they opposed the move. So much for Democrats standing up for the little guy.
Mr. Walkinshaw will tell you the only decision before the supervisors now is whether to issue the legally required five-year notice to displace free market solutions with a government-run solution. Watch their public meetings, however; their intentions are clear. As anyone passingly familiar with human psychology knows, once the county signals it’s open to destroying all private haulers, those haulers will have little incentive to continue to invest in the county. Making free choice even more onerous, the county just increased the solid waste disposal rates.
Third, Mr. Walkinshaw’s scheme will cost taxpayers far more, not less, than they are currently paying. Mr. Walkinshaw claims his plan can save residents “up to 25%,” but he provides no evidence for this claim. He would be laughed out of a real boardroom in five minutes flat, but this is Fairfax County government, where the standards are much lower and most of his audience is apparently as ignorant as he is.
The plan estimates $30 million to $40 million in transition costs, but the Northern Virginia Private Waste Haulers Alliance calculates that hidden implementation costs will be much higher. One need only study the county’s largest government-run business, Fairfax County Public Schools, to see the financial disasters it creates. In 2025, the school system cost three times what it cost in 1985 after adjusting for inflation. Meanwhile, SAT scores dropped 40 points and 72% of its students failed writing.
More alarming are the wider implications. Mr. Walkinshaw’s arguments for socializing hauling are not unique to that industry but apply to any business. He reminds one of his fellow “democratic” socialist candidate in New York City, Zohran Mamdani, who recently floated the idea of government-run grocery stores.
When Supervisor Pat Herrity reasonably asked what was driving this effort, a county employee who worked on the plan replied, “To have more control.” At least someone’s being honest.
