Last week ProgressVA received an email from a concerned mother, who was upset about cuts to academic and sports programs at her child’s school. “What can be done?”, she asked us. The same story is being told across our Commonwealth, and not just in our schools. The conservative, cuts-only budget that Virginia’s State Senate is now considering is bad for Virginia families across the board.
Budgets are governing documents and Virginia needs to know that the drastic cuts being made now will hurt real people. Can you tell your story and help us paint a picture of what this conservative budget means for Virginia? Click here to submit your story and picture to our Virginia Needs Better Budget Choices project now and share how this budget is going to impact you and your family.
You may have thought that conservatives’ dogged pursuit of their war on women was the extent of their misplaced priorities. But did you know that conservative State Senators have set their sights on:
- Funding yesterday’s schools instead of tomorrow’s, keeping funding $400M below 2007 levels.
- Cutting long-term care coverage for 4500 seniors. That’s the equivalent of 112 packed school buses driving away from nursing homes.
- Eliminating funding for the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Initiative, a proven effective program to stop kids from having kids.
- Diverting almost $70M in funds from the landmark national mortgage settlement to pay for conservative priorities instead of the housing programs for which it was meant.
- Ignoring our transportation challenges. The Senate budget fails to offer any meaningful solution to our growing transportation crisis.
No matter if you are in school or a senior, live in Northern Virginia, Central Virginia, or Hampton Roads–conservatives are pushing a budget built on your back that supports their agenda of keeping tax loopholes while cutting essential community services.