Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Richmond’s Skinny Budget: Low Stakes Poker, High Stakes Rhetoric

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Robin Beres
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by Shaun Kenney

Virginia’s General Assembly managed to pass the Richmond equivalent of a continuing resolution to fund the government until Senate Democrats and House Republicans can hammer out a compromise on corporate tax breaks.

One will have to pardon me for not getting terribly wound up about tax breaks for corporations while small businesses and working families are struggling with back-to-back  years of 9 percent inflation from Washington.

Meanwhile, much of the damage done by the Northam administration with regard to Critical Race Theory, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) requirements, gender ideology, and the long litany of progressive efforts to remake Virginia were left both untouched and unchallenged.

Even school choice — the marquee legislation championed by Lt. Governor Winsome Sears — was left to die in committee.

Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are promising a “brick wall” against House Republicans until they get what they want — in other words, reneging on the pledge from conferees to honor a $950 million tax cut. The stopgap fixes the $200 million shortfall snafu created by the Virginia Department of Education’s spreadsheet, puts another $25 million into the Virginia Retirement System, and another $100 million towards cost overruns for existing building infrastructure. What mystifies most is that the Senate Democrats haven’t been precisely clear on what they want beyond platitudes for higher salaries for bureaucrats, public education, higher education, etc.

The Senate Democrats just aren’t negotiating in good faith. By denying Governor Glenn Youngkin a win on the budget, the self-styled defenders of democracy are merely hijacking the process until they bleed House Republicans out in the public square, threatening a shutdown in July during campaign season and setting up the choice in November between “full funding” for government vs. greedy corporations and their shills.

False rhetoric, but useful, which masks the fact that Senate Democrats are willing to tolerate ineffective and bad government (for a time) provided the public blames Republicans and returns power back to Democrats.

Of course, there is little Republicans can do unless we have majorities in both the House and the Senate. Yet, as this year reflected all too painfully, Republican majorities do not translate into conservative majorities. Meanwhile, on the left, Democrat majorities seem able to deliver progressive results despite their liberal leadership on matters they care about.

I suppose progressives just want it more than we do. Which is unfortunate, but the state of play nonetheless (until we start giving a damn about it).

Shaun Kenney is the editor of The Republican Standard, former chairman of the Board of Supervisors for Fluvanna County, and a former executive director of the Republican Party of Virginia. This column first appeared in The Republican Standard and is republished with permission.

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9 responses to “Richmond’s Skinny Budget: Low Stakes Poker, High Stakes Rhetoric”

  1. Stephen Haner Avatar
    Stephen Haner

    Four years ago, when the data was clear that the federal tax cut would produce a state-level windfall in corporate income taxes, I proposed through the Jefferson Institute a lowered corporate income tax rate. The business community yawned. Apparently it was yawning again through this session. The Governor and GOP should dump that from the package as a starting point for round 2, and stick with the qualified business investment deduction for the businesses which do NOT pay a corporate income tax. That’s also the start ups, probably a higher percentage of SWAM businesses. Hard for D’s to demonize (but they will….)

  2. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
    Dick Hall-Sizemore

    Shaun Kennedy (1) conflates Virginia budget politics with national budget politics (2) has not been paying attention to what is going on in Richmond (3) is being politically simplistic and (4) engages in a little hypocrisy.

    1. He accuses Senate Democrats of “threatening a shutdown in July”. There will be no shutdown in July and there never was any danger of that. First of all, the General Assembly has passed a budget bill. It may be a “skinny” bill but it does make necessary updates to the current budget, which was the original intent of having a “short session” after all. Second, because the Commonwealth operates on a biennial budget and the Appropriation Act adopted by the 2022 session does not expire until June 30, 2024, it would not have been necessary to adopt a an amended budget bill this session. In 2021, the General Assembly did not agree on an amended budget bill and the Commonwealth entered FY 2002 without a shutdown.

    2. He accuses Senate Democrats of not being “precisely clear on what they want beyond platitudes for higher salaries for bureaucrats, public education, higher education, etc.” I refer him to the budget amendments to SB 800, adopted by the Senate. They spell out in precise numbers what the Senate Democrats want. https://budget.lis.virginia.gov/amendments/2023/1/SB800/Introduced/FA/

    3. Just because the Senate Democrats would not roll over and accept what the Governor proposed (“denying [him] a win on the budget”), he accuses them of negotiating in bad faith. Give me a break. Since when is either house of the legislature obligated to do what the Governor proposes? And why is that the Senate Democrats are the ones that are supposed to be negotiating? What about the House Republicans?

    4. It’s a little rich for a representative of the national party that habitually threatens government shutdowns and national debt default if it does not get its way to be feigning outrage at a nonexistent threat of a shutdown in Virginia.

    1. Stephen Haner Avatar
      Stephen Haner

      Agreed, no major budget amendments does not mean a shut down. But the Tweets and other nonsense from Democrats made it clear that dragging their heels on the budget was an effort to place blame on Youngkin, who traditionally is not at the table anyway. They think it will hurt Rs more than Ds in November. But I think another untold issue with the failure is that so many of the Senate negotiators are lame ducks, not coming back. They have no reason to worry about the voters or with maintaining working relationships with the House or the Governor.

      1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
        Dick Hall-Sizemore

        I can’t speak to the Tweets. I have never been tempted to be on Twitter. As for so many Senate negotiators being lame ducks, you may have a point, but I am not sure that they worried all that much about voters or maintaining working relationships with the House in the past. And as far as the Democratic Senators, lame duck or not, are concerned, they are probably comfortable that they are doing what their constituents want.

        1. Stephen Haner Avatar
          Stephen Haner

          If you want to know how Democrats think, Twitter and Blue Virginia are where you catch them unfiltered. And one of the key rules of the process is, what goes around comes around. That is a great brake on nonsense, but it disappears with lame ducks. Too many lame ducks on that conference committee.

          1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
            Dick Hall-Sizemore

            Has Howell announced that she was not going to run again? I know that it was expected that she wouldn’t, but I have not seen any public announcement.

  3. James Regimbal Avatar
    James Regimbal

    Dick is right, a new budget is not necessary this year to keep the state running. In fact the introduced budget spent the $3.6 billion in available GF revenues on $1 bil. in tax cuts and 70% of the rest on one time spending proposals most of which are not of an emergency nature. The one-time spending left room for the growing cost of the tax cuts in future years. Even the additional sales tax money (net of the $58 mil. error) is a sum sufficient appropriation, which would flow to schools without a new budget.

    1. Dick Hall-Sizemore Avatar
      Dick Hall-Sizemore

      Ah, I did not realize that the sales tax money for schools was a sum sufficient appropriation. I’sm always learning from you.

  4. Stephen Haner Avatar
    Stephen Haner

    Four years ago, when the data was clear that the federal tax cut would produce a state-level windfall in corporate income taxes, I proposed through the Jefferson Institute a lowered corporate income tax rate. The business community yawned. Apparently it was yawning again through this session. The Governor and GOP should dump that from the package as a starting point for round 2, and stick with the qualified business investment deduction for the businesses which do NOT pay a corporate income tax. That’s also the start ups, probably a higher percentage of SWAM businesses. Hard for D’s to demonize (but they will….)

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