To the Editor:
For the past four years, we Commonwealth citizens have enjoyed prosperity recorded by few states. We have had four years of state budget surpluses, the lowest unemployment rate in the surrounding states and the District, the most business-friendly state east of the Mississippi, much safer healthcare facilities for the women, and we were protected from attacks on our freedoms by an all-intrusive Federal Government. We had a strong Attorney General, who learned in the Constitution fought to allow Virginia to keep the constitutional rights the states reserved for themselves. These performance metrics did not happen accidentally. It took the leadership of a Governor and General Assembly working together to bring the best (if not perfect) government available. Sure, one can argue Virginia was helped by a bankrupting Federal Government spending program. We will eventually pay the price for that.
We now have a new Governor Terence McAuliffe and the mirror image of a dysfunctional Washington Senate majority leader: a Lieutenant Governor importing Washington politics into Richmond. Carrying out the new Governor's pledge to expand MEDICAID, one Senator has already patroned a bill expanding MEDICAID in Virginia at the budget-busting cost of over $2.4B. Where will this money come from? Our pockets in the form of an unsustainable tax increase - back to the days of phony budget deficits. This writer thinks we'll see a Special Session of the General Assembly to sort this one out. It will not be pleasant.
Jack Kenny
Reston Republicans