Entry 975 of 1104
By Blue Prevails On January 19 at 2:03 AM

The beginning of the Bob McDonnell era--hang on to your hats! Here’s what we learned from his speech tonight to the Virginia General Assembly. He is ambitiously speeding money for the business issues he is interested in, but short on reality about where to find the money. Here are a few things he mentioned that he wants to accomplish. I’m still waiting to see how he uses the power of his office to attempt things he may not have articulated yet. He told us during the 
campaign that he wanted to privatize the operations of ABC stores, and he brought that up again tonight; he wants to drill for oil off Virginia’s shores, but didn't fix the cost vs. benefits for that enterprise; he will open the closed interstate rest stops; he is evidently enthralled with the movie industry because, of all the state’s needs, he wants to increase the motion picture opportunity fund by two million dollars; and, since we do not need to conserve our use of petroleum products or promote highway safety, he wants to raise the speed limit in rural areas of the state to 70 miles per hour.

Here’s what he doesn’t want to do: Raise Taxes

As a matter of fact, he declared that he would veto any tax increase bill that came across his desk.

Here’s another issue he evidently didn’t think needed any attention: Transportation

It’s merely one of the main issues he campaigned on, but now, he doesn’t think the legislature should bother this year to try to find a solution to a one billion dollar problem.

Sounds to me like the new governor has started off with a lot of rhetoric, but is short on real planning. Good luck to all of us in the next four years. I cannot say that I hope he succeeds with a lot of his objectives because they are not the ones I think are important. I truly hope he doesn’t bleed public and higher education to finance far less important measures. If we want a good economy and good quality of life, in my opinion, we must invest in a well educated state population. I heard him talk about starting more charter schools and making colleges more affordable, but the reality is that we have a bare-bones budget. My question is how will McDonnell accomplish these goals without a source of funding?