The Goldman pro-business plan can be found on Blue Virginia.
Also: McDonnell Reform Commission a total bust and it hurt his ABC proposal too.
By Paul Goldman
According to news accounts, the McDonnell Administration is said to considering a switch in its ABC position towards endorsing a plan that keeps the government run wholesale hard liquor business, but privatizes the retail end. This, of course, is directly counter to what McDonnell has been saying for months now (see his Fourth of July speech on how being in the liquor business is not a core function of government and how he is going to be the Governor who finally gets it and thus gets the state out of it).
“Never mind” as that famous SNL character use to say!
As readers of this column know, I have previously put out a detailed plan which privatizes the ABC operation at the retail and wholesales levels, does not create a hole in the budget like the McDonnell plan (actually it raises money), and – based on McDonnell’s latest numbers – produces way more transportation funding! I guess I am pro-business and the Governor is pro-government.
Moreover, my plan removes the anti-rural bias in the McDonnell approach, and it eliminates the huge up license fees that favor the big box retailers over small businesses. It also doesn’t require the new McDonnell taxes.
As for the McDonnell Reform Commission, it has failed to do what the Governor had promised, much as his ABC plan failed to live-up to his campaign promise.
Still, if McDonnell takes my proven pro-business approach to the ABC business, he can keep his promise and then some to the people of Virginia.
But does he dare credit a VA Democrat with being the true pro-business voice in this whole debate?
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