Virginia Republicans may be losing their grip on power, but they can console themselves that they’re still perceived as “pro business.” That gives them a significant advantage in fund raising. I’m yet to be convinced, however, that the pro-business epithet is terribly beneficial for the rest of us.
According to the 2008 report card issued by the Virginia Foundation for Research and Economic Education (Virginia FREE), the top pro-business legislators in the General Assembly are all Republican. As listed by the Associated Press, they include:
1. Sen. Walter Scotch, R
(tie) Sen. John Watkins, R
3. Sen. Kenneth Stolle, R
(tie) Sen. Thomas Norment, R
5. Sen. William Wampler, R
6. Sen. Frank Wagner, R
(tie) Del. Thomas Rust, R
8. Sen. Harry Blevins, R
9. Sen. Robert Hurt, R
(tie) Sen. Stephen Newman, R
Once upon a time, I would have said it was a good thing to be pro-business. America is, after all, a capitalist society. A healthy economy requires healthy, profitable businesses. But I’m not so sure I believe that anymore. Increasingly, businesses view government and politics not as a thing apart from the private sector but as an extension of marketplace, an arena where they can manipulate the rules and the power of patronage for their own benefit. Increasingly, the “business” lobby has evolved into an aggregation of special interests that look out for themselves, not the general welfare.
Clayton Roberts, president of Virginia FREE, doesn’t see it that way. In a column published widely around the state this morning, he regards the interests of business, the citizenry and good government as largely synonomous:
Virginia businesses do not see public safety, education, health care, transportation, and energy as partisan issues. They are Virginia issues. They are pressing business issues.
Roberts, a delightful guy whom I regard as a friend, blames elected officials and partisan stand-offs for Virginia’s failure to devise legislative fixes. I wouldn’t disagree. Mindless partisanship does not lend itself to solving problems.
But the biggest obstacle in Virginia is something else entirely: the widespread belief that complex problems have easy answers — usually entailing the expenditure of larger amounts of money. The answer, we hear repeatedly, is mo’ money. We don’t hear a cry for Fundamental Change.
John McCain may be trying to seize the mantle of change in the presidential elections, but I see little evidence that Virginia Republicans — or businesses — have been caught up in the same spirit.