Bob McDonnell woud be an excellent choice for Vice President.

He has done an outstanding job as Governor; his presence on the ticket would bring Virginia into the GOP column.

.

hmmmmmmmmm

A Virginia ‘surplus’ that masks future pain

By Editorial, Published: July 30

IMAGINE A BUSINESS that declares a profit two years running but achieves it by withholding payments owed to an important supplier. In effect, that’s what Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell has now done by declaring what he unconvincingly terms a budget “surplus” for the last two years. Call it what you like, governor, but it doesn’t change the rather more awkward facts.

Like most states, Virginia has made massive spending cuts since the recession started three years ago, slashing billions of dollars in outlays to schools, colleges and universities, and virtually every social service the state provides. Although Republicans like Mr. McDonnell don’t often mention it, the impact of those cuts was cushioned by the federal stimulus, which added hundreds of millions of dollars to cover health care for the poor through Medicaid, among other needs.

Last year, with the stimulus dollars running dry and targets for further savings dwindling amid already shrunken government spending, Mr. McDonnell relied more heavily on budgetary gimmickry than he has before. He postponed $620 million in payments owed to the state pension system, which covers 600,000 teachers, among other beneficiaries. And he declared the money would be repaid starting in 2013 — conveniently, the year his gubernatorial term ends.

Now Mr. McDonnell has announced that Virginia notched up a “surplus” of $311 million for the fiscal year that ended June 30. But just like last year — when to manage a balanced budget he also postponed payments of $135 million to the state pension fund, known as the Virginia Retirement System — it is a surplus with a very large asterisk. In fact, the $620 million that Mr. McDonnell withheld from the pension fund is almost exactly twice the size of the “surplus.”

What Mr. McDonnell calls a surplus is the result of higher-than-forecast individual and corporate tax receipts, a product of the past year’s economic uptick. The money will go to a fund earmarked for cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay and for education. But even with that slight improvement, tax collections are still way below their pre-recession levels in Virginia, as elsewhere.

We don’t think Mr. McDonnell has been a bad steward of the state’s finances. Many states are in worse shape than Virginia, and nearly all have resorted to some sort of budgetary legerdemain, often involving postponing payments, to balance the books. In a time of severe fiscal stress at every level of government, the gimmicks to which Richmond has resorted are no worse than what has become the new normal around the country.

Still, Mr. McDonnell would be wiser to level with Virginians about the price and sacrifices such maneuvers will entail when the state repays its pension fund and faces up to other deferred obligations, including the billions of dollars in new borrowing to fund road improvements. Having refused to raise across-the-board taxes, and with few cuts left to make, the governor has been forced to postpone a day of reckoning. In effect, he is passing off the pain to his successors.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-virginia-surplus-that-masks-future-pain/2011/07/28/gIQA4nb3jI_print.html

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Ask and ye shall receive Anna.

Thought to day would be a good day to go a little off topic and bring you a little something if not from the heart land at least out on one of the limbs.

Because Mr. McDonnell is fixing to figure heavily in several folks V.P. plans.

Folks this is what these folks do. It is what they are and always will be.

See if a Democrat is elected to the Governorship we will hear all about how we can’t spend any money because we got to pay off all these debts. And if a Republican is elected why we will hear all about that we can just not pay these folks a la Scott Walker or Christie. Silly them for expecting that money to be there.

In the meantime the original perpetrator has moved on to bigger and better things. Like screwing up the Federal government where you don’t have those stimulus funds to cheat on or pension funds you can easily raid to balance your budget. So remember this when you see all those ads that say “Bob McDonnell a fiscal conservative who turned things around for Va. and left a surplus”. All Mr. Donnell has left is a mess for somebody else to clean up. And he can do it on the Federal level too if you let him. See these fellers are real good at running for office. Actual governing is a different story. They suck at that but they are hoping that you just don’t notice in all the cacophony they create.

Oh and one more thing while we’re at it Mr. McDonnell

You might want to talk to your old buddy Cootch to get his Tea Bagger folks to cut you some slack on this Debt Committee thing. All your buddies from Blackwater have already moved to Dubai and took their ill-gotten gains with them. If the triggers kick in and they take any more money out of the Defense Dept. all that money that you have spent on bribing Defense Contractors to locate in Northern Va. is going to go away. And that’s going to leave a hole that there ain’t enough Pension Funds in the State of Va. to fill up.

Just a thought there Bucky.

OMG, another nut case - and I'm from Virginia!! These nuts have tried to rewrite civil war history and raided the bunkers of one of the best public school systems in the nation just to fund their stupid attacks on Obama's healthcare system. Keep these neo-nazis out of responsible positions, pulezzzz...

Two posts comparing Bob McDonnell to Nazis. How pathetic.

Feisty and her hateful "Libs R Us" crew....Your parents must be so proud !

This guy is a racist homphobe!