Gov. Bob McDonnell on Monday unveiled a two-year, $84.9 billion spending plan that balances increases in transportation, higher education and the state’s pension system with $882 million in targeted reductions largely to Medicaid and public education funding. The proposed budget for July 1, 2012, through June 30, 2014, contains no tax increases but raises certain fees, including $10 million worth from the Department of Motor Vehicles.

If fees are increased at the DMV, doesn’t that really constitute a tax increase, by another name? 

Additionally, if items like Medicaid and public education get shortchanged, doesn’t that simply make local governments more strapped for much needed cash?  The real estate market has not rebounded all that much which is where the taxes come from in most localities.  There is also a movement under way to do away with the BPOL tax. 

Somehow politicians need to accept that we are not all that stupid.  We know that neither PWC nor Virginia can print money.  We know that a certain amount of money is needed for schools and for medicaid.  If the buck stops here, we either do without cops and other public safety services or we have 40 kids in a classroom. 

How do you cut back on Medicaid?  Where do you start?  Do you disqualify people?  I don’t know the answers.  It just seems that we are playing a shell game.  The fed cuts what it gives to the states.  The state cuts what it gives to the localities.  The localities have things they must do like provide medicaid, education money and public safety.  So we move it around. 

This is like the song, Where have all the Flowers Gone.  Gone to Flowers everyone.  McDonnell is on Fox News bragging that he has a surplus.  Not really.  How about that money owed to VRS that has not yet been repaid?  How about what is being shorted the localities?  How about the increased fees?  Just because we don’t call it a tax, is it still a tax?  Yup. 

I don’t really care.  I noticed a huge hit since the last time I renewed my license.  I expected it.  But lets call it what it is.  It’s a tax increase called a fee. 

Congratulations to Loudoun Insider for calling out the Loudoun County Republican Party for their inappropriate Halloween montage featuring President Obama with a bullet hole in his head.   According to Too Conservative Blog:

LCRC Goes WAY Too Far

By Loudoun Insider

This cartoon montage just arrived as part of an LCRC email blast.  I am no fan of Barack Obama, but putting up a photo of him as a zombie with a bullet hole in his head????????????  Like him or not he is the legitimately elected the President of the United States and Commander in Chief of our armed services in a time of war.  THIS IS DISGUSTING AND SHAMEFUL.  Someone should send this to the US Secret Service.

WTOP.com printed that Governor McDonnell went on record opposing the depiction of such violence and said forcefully that it wasn’t to happen again:

Gov. Bob McDonnell, through spokesman J. Tucker Martin, called on the Loudoun GOP to “apologize for their actions, and to immediately ensure that such imagery is never used again.”

Virginia GOP Chairman Pat Mullins said such an image “has no place in our politics. Ever.”

Loudoun County GOP chairman Mark Sell said in an email response to The Associated Press that the graphic was “a light-hearted attempt to inject satire humor into the Halloween holiday.”

Chairman Sell needs to grow up and exercise some  judgement if that is what he thinks.   Remember how appalled most of us were when some reporter threw a shoe at President Bush?  Many of those who were outraged weren’t Republicans.  They were Americans who had seen their president threatened.   I think the same sentiment leaps out at us here. 

As outraged as people might be over the political situation in Loudoun county, we all need to remind ourselves that not all Republicans would be this irresponsible and that most Rs don’t condone such behavior.  There has been a great deal of unrest over in Loudoun and lots of infighting.  One of the sheriff’s candidates got a good wrist slapping for sending inappropriate messages/pictures.  That should be an indicator that things just are a little out of control.  

Our blog has not been involved in Loudoun politics.  We won’t be, even though there is certainly some overlap with candidates.  Again, three cheers and a hat tip for Loudoun Insider for taking the high road.

Boo Hiss to the Loudoun County Republican Party for exercising very poor judgement.  Some things just aren’t funny.

Kudos to those Republicans for policing their own ranks when it needed to happen.  It is far more effective to read that they did  it than the Democrats hollering  and yelling about it.  It makes the behavior less likely to reoccur. 

Thanks to Big Dog for calling attention to this story.

Fox 5 DC full story.

 The above video explains the damage in neighboring Culpeper, Virginia.  The main damage was done near the epicenter in Mineral, Virginia, 35 miles from Culpeper.

Richmond Times Dispatch:

Gov. Bob McDonnell and Virginia First Lady Maureen McDonnell met privately with President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama for approximately 10 minutes this morning in Hampton in what was described as a “friendly visit” by McDonnell spokesman Tucker Martin.

The conversation ranged from Louisa County disaster aid to a park designation for Fort Monroe to the focus of the president’s event — veterans. 

McDonnell and the first lady welcomed the Obama’s to Virginia and the governor thanked the president for making the hiring of veterans a priority, according to a brief description of the meeting by Martin. 

McDonnell made the case again for federal disaster aid for Louisa County residents who had property damage from the August earthquake, and the two discussed Virginia’s planned appeal of the initial rejection by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

McDonnell also spoke to Obama “about the strong support in this community and across the commonwealth for making Fort Monroe a National Park, and his strong personal support of such a designation.”

Fort Monroe is a neat place. I vote for making it a national park or monument.  Hiring vets should be a priority .  McDonnell dogged after those FEMA funds for the earthquake victims.  I understand that Culpeper, especially the main street section, had very severe damage also.  See video above. 

Taking bets here on whether or not the FEMA request comes through now.  I say yes.  Anyone else?

Richmond Times Dispatch:

Still fuming from a denial of federal aid for earthquake-battered Louisa County, Gov. Bob McDonnell has invited President Barack Obama to join him in Louisa next week during Obama’s swing-state bus tour.

McDonnell, chairman of the Republican Governors Association, wrote in a letter Tuesday to Obama that “it would benefit your administration to understand the devastation brought on by this historic earthquake, and to see how the community’s recovery will be hindered as a result of FEMA’s denial of important emergency relief funds.”

The Aug. 23 magnitude-5.8 earthquake that shook much of the East Coast was centered near Mineral.

The state was notified Friday that its request to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for assistance for residents of Louisa was turned down. The declaration would have made federal grants and low-interest loans as well as unemployment assistance and crisis counseling available to homeowners, renters and businesses.

Damage assessments for residential properties are nearly $15 million, mostly in uninsured costs, McDonnell said.

FEMA’s administrator said the agency determined that the damage to dwellings was not of such severity and magnitude that it is beyond the capabilities of the state, local governments and voluntary agencies.

The earthquake marked the second natural disaster for which McDonnell sought — and was denied — federal help. In May, FEMA turned down requests for help for areas hit by tornadoes in April, and McDonnell is appealing that decision as well.

Go get them, Governor McDonnell.  I realize it is rare for me to side with McDonnell over much of anything but this time he has the Moon on his side.  Virginia is getting screwed, not once but twice.  The Mineral area was devastated.  My friend who teaches at Louisa County High School says the school has been declared ‘totalled.’  The middle and high schools are on split shift at the middle school which was not destroyed in the earthquake.  The high school goes Monday, Tuesday, Friday from 8-5 pm.  The middle school attends Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, same hours. 

Very few homeowner insurance policies have earthquake coverage.  Many homes and businesses were damaged, some fairly extensively.  Who gets to eat the cost for these repairs?  FEMA wants the state and local government to help with all these repairs.  How unrealistic.  Virginians pay federal taxes and we expect our people to have access to federal grants and low interest loans in times of disaster, whether than disaster is an earthquake, a tornado, hurricane, or other form of disaster.  Virginians might want to remind the Obama administration of the sound butt whipping Floridians gave President George H. W. Bush after he didn’t do to suit them after Hurricane Andrew. 

Governor McDonnell, stay on them.  President Obama, come see for yourself.  Federal grants and FEMA help should come to Virginia.   They didn’t really mean to stop all spending.

Driven by what he’s seen of education programs in Asian countries and other parts of the world, McDonnell said Virginia needs to step up its efforts. Those nations, he said, have “phenomenal education systems training people in math and science and technology.”

“I want to raise the bar,” McDonnell said. “I’d like to have more competition. I’d like to have more charter schools, more college laboratory schools, and more virtual schools. I’d like to find ways to increase our teaching of important life skills, from financial literacy to civics to business, so young people will have a sense of the broader things that are going to make them good citizens,” he said.

More money for K-12 schools isn’t necessarily the way to achieve his goals, he said.

“I am suggesting we may want to look at the ways we allocate that (money for K-12) and put it more directly into instructional programs and less in non-instructional ones,” he said.

I particularly approve of teaching important life skills.  Too many young people don’t have them.  Having good life skills helps one make wiser choices.   However, it appears that McDonnell is being a wide-eyed liberal on some of these issues.  Charter schools aren’t necessarily the answer.  Perhaps he ought to eye schools like Pennington, right here in PWC.  There are long waiting lists to go to Pennington.  That tells me that more schools like Pennington are needed.

Good schools don’t function without money.  McDonnell is kidding himself if he thinks that he can avoid dumping money into a school program he wants to change.  In the first place, he needs to accept that the cost for educating  those with specials needs  can triple and quadruple per pupil spending.  Special needs can be any student who has special needs:  mental or physical  handicaps, minority, economic disadvantaged, Limited English proficiency, learning disabilities….the list goes on.  Schools have been mandated to provide for these students so there is no avoiding compliance.  The best intentions to slash a budget will run head long into the reality of mandates. 

Asian schools produce good academic results BUT…they have come under much criticism for falling short on creating good emotional health.  Naturally we hear about extremes with kindergarteners commiting suicide and Tiger Mothers practically devouring their children.  The real issue is that Asian countries are very homogenious and many are cultures that highly value academic education. 

The United States is a melting pot in theory but often cultures and ethnicities maintain their own cultural values.  Not all value academic education the same and there is no shame attached to not valuing education in many of  our various sub-cultures.  One can see the difference in values  just roaming around the Old Dominion.  Different regions have different values.  Therefore, trying to fit a lot of square pegs in round holes is simply not going to work.  McDonnell would fare better if he attempted to create world class vocational training side by side with world class academic programs.   Not everyone is going to go to college. 

Meanwhile, McDonnell should be asking why so many students from Asian countries line up to attend Virginia’s colleges and universities.  We must be doing something right.  He should lobby the federal Powers That Be to allow those educated here to remain here and use their Virginia education to serve Virginia, rather than wisking those students away once they graduate. 

McDonnell needs to be reminded that the VRS is not the state’s personal ATM. It was very solvent for many years, since 1908 to be exact. Funny how the Republicans discover its woes after all these years. Could it be that Mrs. Cantor wants to shift the burden of payment off the state and and the localities? Isn’t that the Republican way? Maybe the state should keep paying and the employee chip in a little more. That would should good faith. I sure don’t want to hear the Republicans chest thumping about how much money they saved the state in a few years.

During the 2009 gubernatorial campaign, Bob McDonnell said he wanted to investigate selling Virginia’s state liquor stores to private owners.  Many of us went nuclear at the time but figured he would move on past that bad idea.  Apparently we thought wrong.  In fact, an article in the Washington Post slipped right past me on May 17.

From the WaPo, in its entirety:

Gov. Bob McDonnell’s administration has been quietly meeting for months with members of the alcohol industry and others in the community who would be affected by his proposal to privatize liquor stores.

Eric Finkbeiner, the governor’s senior advisor for policy, has been talking informally with representatives from the Restaurant and Hospitality Association, Diageo Beverages, Miller Coors, Associated Distributors, Retail Merchants Association of Virginia, Virginia Wine Wholesalers, Distilled Spirits Council of the United States, Beer Wholesalers Association, Total Wine, Virginia Wineries Association, Wine Institute, Sazerac (which owns Bowman Distilleries in Virginia), Virginia Retail Merchants Association, MADD, public safety organizations and faith-based groups.

McDonnell recently formed a commission on government reform and restructuring, which will consider, among other proposals how the state could sell the state’s 350 liquor stores, which he pledged to do on the campaign trail last year.

Finkbeiner and his working group will bring possible ideas to the commission, which is charged with providing initial recommendations to McDonnell by July 16, and writing a final report by Dec. 1.

McDonnell estimates the sale of the ABC stores could bring in as much as $500 million for much-needed road improvements, but his critics argue that any one-time proceeds would be offset by the permanent loss of $100 million in annual revenue that goes to other state services.

Last week, at a public forum focused to kick off the government reform effort, McDonnell said he would not support holding a referedum to decide whether the ABC stores should be privatized.

“For 70 years, we’ve distributed beer and wine in every 7-Eleven, every Food Lion. But we’ve controlled the distribution of spirits,” he told the crowd of more than 100 people. “From a free market stand point, it doesn’t make sense to continue to control only one part of the distribution.”

McDonnell will call the General Assembly back to Richmond this fall for a special session to approve his recommendations if he can build support for some of them. <

Virginia has a long history of having state stores that dates back to the end of prohibition in 1933.  The history and accompanying pictures can be found at the following link on the ABC website. 

 Additionally, Virginia  makes money off the state stores–lots of money and that money goes in to other programs.  See the 2009 annual report.  Download here.   (pdf)

What is McDonnell’s obsession with privatizing our state ABC stores?  Any private industry will have one objective–making money.  Virginia regulates the use of alcohol and its primary objective is not financial.  McDonnell will run in to a big fight if he continues with this tradition-breaking stupidity.

Last Thursday, Holder, responding to questions from Rep. Robert W. Goodlatte, R-6th, said his office was waiting for official word for Virginia’s position on the Soering matter.

McDonnell wrote yesterday, “in light of your public comments at last week’s hearing, I want to formally reiterate that Virginia has clearly revoked authorization for a transfer of Jens Soering to Germany. Soering is currently in Virginia’s custody for state offenses and he will remain so in order to serve out his Virginia sentence for the horrendous crimes he committed in our commonwealth.”

Additionally, McDonnell has stated that he is revoking the state’s consent to any transfer of Soering who was convicted in the 1985 vicious slayings of his girlfriend’s parents, Derek and Nancy Haysom in their Bedford County home.

Good for Governor McDonnell. Soering needs to cool his jets in a Virginia prison. I would hope that AG Holden upholds Virginia’s wishes.

artwork from c-ville.com

Civil Rights are defined as: the right to vote, the right to serve on a jury, the right to hold public office and the right to serve as a notary public. if someone is convicted of felony, then one loses these civil rights.   Virginia Constitution says, “No person who has been convicted of a felony shall be qualified to vote unless his civil rights have been restored by the governor.” There is no limitation on the governor’s power to restore rights, and no mention of having to report the names of such people to the General Assembly.

According to c-ville.com:

Virginia and Kentucky are the only two states that do not automatically restore convicted felons’ civil rights. Most states restore these rights upon the completion of a prison sentence, probation or parole. In Virginia, felons convicted of a nonviolent offense must wait three years after completing all court obligations—sentencing, fines and probation—then file an application for the restoration of rights to the Secretary of the Commonwealth.

If your conviction is for a violent offense —or a drug manufacturing or distribution offense—the process is much more difficult.

The nonviolent offender’s application is two pages. The violent application is 12. Iachetta calls the violent felony forms cumbersome. “They’re horrible,” she says.

After waiting five years after all court obligations, a person convicted of a violent felony must obtain a burdensome collection of paperwork: a letter from your most recent probation or parole officer, copies of your pre- or post-sentence report, certified copies of every order of conviction and sentencing orders, three letters of reference and, to top it off, a personal letter to the Governor explaining your convictions and how your life has changed.

Iachetta says that roughly half of the people she sees who start the process don’t complete it.

“There’s got to be an easier way,” says Iachetta. “I don’t know at this point what it is. The process can be streamlined. That being said, until it happens, we’ve got to deal with what we’ve got.”

[Note:  Iachetta is Charlottesville's general registrar]

Governor Bob McDonnell has added another hoop for former felons to jump through. He is now proposing that those who want voting rights restored must write an essay outlining their contributions to society since their release, Civil Rights leaders and many others interested in prisoner rights, are outraged by this plan. They say it targets minorities, the poor and the under-educated and denies them of their civil rights. Others are cheering on McDonnell for ‘meaning business.’

McDonnell defends his own plan in the Washington Post:

McDonnell’s administration said the essay requirement is designed to put a human face on each applicant and to help staff members better understand each person’s situation.

“It gives all applicants the opportunity to have their cases heard and have their full stories told,” said Janet Polarek, secretary of the commonwealth, whose office handles the requests. “It’s an opportunity, not an obstacle.”

McDonnell is revamping the entire system for felons to have their rights restored as he works to make good on a campaign pledge to process every application within 90 days, considerably faster than any other administration in recent history.

“Under Republican and Democratic governors, they have had to wait six to 12 months — longer in some cases — to get an answer,” Polarek said. “Under the McDonnell administration, our goal is to restore the rights of everyone who has fulfilled their obligation in the most timely manner in Virginia’s recent history.”

For those who have difficulty with literacy, writing an essay seems like an immovable obstacle. Where in the Virginia Constitution can this kind of requirement be found?  Many prisoners and past prisoners suffer from the same malady; under-education plagues prisoners.  To ask someone with limited education to write an essay might just fall into the realm of cruel and unusual punishment.

Detailed Historical Information from the League of Women Voters in Fairfax

RICHMOND, Va. (AP) – Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell has directed state agencies not to discriminate against gay people, essentially overriding the state attorney general’s advice to colleges.

McDonnell’s directive Wednesday came amid a public uproar over Attorney General Kenneth Cuccinelli’s letter last week telling public colleges they lack the authority to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. Cuccinelli told colleges to rescind or change any anti-discrimination policies that include protection for gay people.

The Republican attorney general’s letter was denounced by gay-rights groups and Democrats. In the letter, Cuccinelli said colleges can’t include gays in their anti-discrimination policies without General Assembly authorization.

The Richmond Times Dispatch further adds that the AG is all happy that the governor has issued his ‘don’t discriminate’ decree. Now what’s wrong with this picture?

Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, who says there’s nothing in Virginia law to protect gay state workers from discrimination, is welcoming Gov. Bob McDonnell’s decree against bias on the basis of sexual orientation.

However, it’s not clear from a written statement just issued by Cuccinelli whether he backs the governor’s legal thinking in issuing a so-called executive directive protecting gay employees.

“I applaud Gov. McDonnell for the tone he is setting for the commonwealth of Virginia,” said Cuccinelli.

“I will remain in contact with the governor and continue to work with him on issues important to Virginians. I expect Virginia’s state employees to follow all state and federal anti-discrimination laws and will enforce Virginia’s laws to the fullest extent.”

So if you are feeling just a little bit confused, welcome to my world. Has someone contacted Jon Stewart to tell him its OK  here in Virginia now?  The Guv has nullified the AG.  Maybe he will now retract his remark about our gay flag. 

Perhaps Gov. Moderate McDonnell has discovered that Virginia really does want a mainstream governor and that this nonsense just isn’t going to fly. I am glad he made this decision.