McDonnell has finally gotten his way and line itemed $424,000 in state funding for NPR, the right-wing bug-a-boo that conservatives claim gets public money for its pinko views, but in fact is a great teaching tool for pre-schoolers and helps their parents and grand parents make sense of a world the rest of the Big Media, like Clear Channel and its army of radio stations, ignores.
So what else is up with Bob?
- Big-time movie producer and director Steve Spielberg will get $3.5 million in money from the Governor’s Motion Picture Opportunity Fund and the Virginia Motion Picture Tax Credit program to make a movie in Richmond and Petersburg about Abraham Lincoln. The movie will be based on Doris Kearns Goodwin’s popular history “Team of Rivals.”
- General Electric, which made profits last year of $14.2 billion but paid no federal income tax is setting up a cyper security division to Henrico County with lots of public money help, rumored to be about $300,000. The move will help Richmond’s IT market which was hard hit by the demise of Circuit City and LandAmerica.
- GE also is being coaxed back, with public money, to reopen a light bulb plant that it had closed in Winchester. Democrat Mark Warner is helping Republican McDonnell with this oh-so-sweet arm-twisting.
Now, I may not be living up to my liberal credentials by criticizing government involvement with the private sector and I apologize. I do believe it can be a good and essential thing.
But one does have to question McDonnell’s priorities. Spielberg is a huge cinematic success. GE is a gigantic and powerful and rich company. Why do they need handouts courtesy of the Virginia taxpayers which a trying useful and sustainable service like NPR goes wanting?
Peter Galuszka