A budget with Virginia values

March 6, 2012

The Virginian-Pilot reports that the Virginia Senate Democrats stated in response to the conservative budget proposals, "'The Senate Democrats have and will continue to reject budgets that divert General Fund money from public safety, education and the elderly,' the letter reads. 'We oppose public policy that thinks it is acceptable to displace 4,500 nursing home residents. We oppose maintaining public education funding at less than 2007 amounts and allowing student teacher ratios to exceed SOQ levels while giving tax credits to corporations supporting exclusive private academies.'"

Progressive Point: Bob McDonnell and our representatives in the General Assembly were elected to create jobs and build a stronger Virginia, but their conservative budget proposals don't meet Virginia's needs. There's no hiding that they want to fund yesterday's schools, not tomorrow's, while kicking thousands of seniors off of long term care and failing to address our transportation challenges.

Growing our economy and investing in our future means providing for strong public schools, fulfilling our promises to seniors, and fixing our transportation system. Driven by ideology instead of good public policy, conservatives want to force Virginians to choose between essential community services. But education, senior care, and transportation are nonnegotiable. Conservatives need to come back to the table to draft a new budget that meets the needs of virginia families. Our elected officials must make the budget's priorities reflect our priorities.

Get the Facts: Virginians want our leaders to create jobs and build a strong economy but the current budget won't get us there.

1. Underfunding K-12 education - The budget funds K-12 education at $400 million less than we spent in 2007, crowds our classrooms and eliminates support staff and electives.


2. Slashing Long-term Care coverage - The current proposed Senate budget eliminates long-term health care for 4500 seniors. That's 112 city busses driving away from the nursing home.


3. Private school tax credits - The Senate budget shifts tax dollars from education, healthcare, and public safety to private schools. Our tax dollars are paying for someone else's private school tuition.


4. Reduced cost-to-compete funding - The budget will hamstring northern Virginia's ability to attract and retain qualified educators. Our kids deserve the best teachers available.


5. Eliminating teen pregnancy prevention funding - The budget eliminates funding for proven effective teen pregnancy prevention programs. These programs work to prevent kids having kids.


6. Cuts to respite care - The budget slashes respite care for disabled Virginians. Disabled Virginian's caregivers deserve all the support we can give them.


7. Misuse of the housing settlement - The budget takes mortgage settlement money meant to support homeowners and uses it for other purposes. That money should go to homeowners.


8. Reduced Medicaid Provider payments - The budget endangers and reduces availability of medical care by slashing payments to doctors and hospitals.  The healthcare industry is one of our few growing economic sectors.


9. Funding for voter ID bills - The budget funds disenfranchisement of hundreds of thousands of Virginia Voters. Every Virginian deserves the right to vote.


10. Failure to actually address the transportation crisis - This budget fails to offer any meaningful solution to our growing transportation crisis. We can't have a strong economy without a solid foundation.

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