• Balancing the $4.2 billion budget deficit without a tax increase;• Supporting Governor McDonnell’s “jobs and opportunity” agenda; and • Reforming public education, including strengthening charter schools
We’re now in the last days of the 2010 Session: • General Assembly (House & Senate) passed about 850 bills • Already, Speaker Howell has signed and sent 2/3rds of them to Gov. McDonnell • New state budget for 2011-2012 Biennium is last major item to be resolved,
While I cannot say definitively how it all will turn out, this much we know for sure: • There WILL NOT BE a 17% Income Tax Hike proposed by Gov. Kaine; • There WILL NOT BE fee increases with no nexus to services provided; • There WILL BE no return of the Car Tax, as Gov. Kaine proposed; and • There WILL BE less spending in the state budget than there was in 2006. In fact, this is the first time in recent memory that state spending will be less than the previous year.
While no one sought the current budget circumstances and the economic downturn, Republicans in the General Assembly have worked closely with Gov. McDonnell to institute long-term stuctural reforms – in education, public safety, health care state employee retirement and more to strengthen Virginia for future jobs & prosperity.