The Washington Post has an article this morning about what's going on behind closed doors among the team of Republicans brought in by Governor Bob McDonnell (R-Regent). The task is to to close a $1.7 billion shortfall in the state budget. Says Post reporter Rosalind Helderman,
We understand the suggestions are very specific--about the only people McDonnell hasn't shared his ideas with yet are the public.
Details below the fold.
McDonnell has already pledged to veto all the proposed tax increases in out-going Governor Tim Kaine's biennial budget blueprint. (In Virginia, where governors are not allowed to succeed themselves, the outgoing governor frames a two-year budget to begin on the first of July in the year he leaves office. The legislature of course can amend or change anything it wants. Virginia seems to have a congenital distaste for for executive power.) That means that McDonnell, who by law must sign a balanced budget, will have to make cuts or sell assets - and he has proposed to sell off the money-making state retail liquor franchise for a short-term revenue boost.
So where will he look to cut? Looks like this:
K-12 Education - Helderman's source(s) say 40% of the shortfall will be made up here. In order to do that, the proposal apparently is to rescind the state Standards of Quality, and allow each school district to figure out which oxen get gored.
Community Service Boards - the folks that run mental health and substance abuse programs - a 5 or 10% cut to their already meager $48 million dollar budget.
FAMIS health program - which provided insurance for poor children and pregnant mothers. This is interesting. The report is that McDonnell wants to cut $30 million of state funding here. But the program gets a 2 for 1 match from the federal government, so the program would stand to loose $90 million. Wow.
This past year Virginia hired a Regent University educated radical "Movement Conservative" (I use that term loosely, heh) Republican to run state affairs during the worst economy since the Great Depression. His two predecessors - Democrats Mark Warner and Tim Kaine - had to deal with difficult budgetary issues, and they did so with a mix of spending cuts and tax increases - against, I might add, a hail of hell from radical Republicans in the House of Delegates, but with actual bi-partisan cooperation from real, old-line "conservative" Republicans and Democrats in the state Senate. The "Commonwealth of Virginia" is now known as one of the best managed states in the Union. Will it continue to be so after four years of the Regent treatment?
Helderman closes with this brilliant observation:
Since each area of the budget has its advocates, you can start to understand why McDonnell would not be anxious to be publicly associated with the controversial proposals.
Perhaps the new governor is biting off more than he can chew.