RICHMOND – Today, in a response to a Republican Party of Virginia press call slamming Eric Cantor and Bob McDonnell’s support of last summer’s debt deal the Democratic Party of Virginia responded by further outlining former Senator George Allen’s reckless approach to deficit reduction that could put 200,000 Virginia jobs in the defense sector at risk.
“Republicans attacking a debt deal that they negotiated and that their reckless spending and intransigence on new revenues helped necessitate is a monstrous, craven act of political cynicism, said Congressman Connolly. ” We need leaders who will work together to find solutions to the challenges we face — these hypocritical Republican attacks do not move us forward, and neither does George Allen’s reckless refusal to accept a deal that goes so far as $10 in spending cuts for every $1 in new revenues.
“Let’s be clear about how we got here,” added Virginia Senator Barbara Favola. “During his six years in the Senate, George Allen’s votes took us from a record surplus to massive deficits and added more than $3 trillion to the national debt. And, he voted four times to raise his own pay while voting against funding for veterans’ benefits and our troops. George Allen is personally responsible for helping to create the debt crisis we faced last summer.”
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Mark Sickles remarked “It is plain reckless for George Allen to help run up the debt that created this crisis in the first place and then refuse to support last year’s bipartisan debt deal as well as any future deal that has as much as a 10:1 ratio of cuts to revenues. If he had had his way and the bipartisan debt deal had gone down, our nation would have been at risk of a default that could have cost hundreds of thousands of jobs across the nation. That’s the risk he was willing to run to avoid compromising and it’s the risk Virginians would run in sending him back to the Senate.”
“As a Delegate who represents the Pentagon as well as thousands of people who work in the defense industry as contractors, let me lead by saying how regrettable it is that George Allen and his Republican supporters would use these cuts as a political football, particularly considering how this deal got done and how we got here in the first place,” said Delegate Brink. “Virginians need real leadership and a balanced approach to cut the deficit while protecting our core priorities – Allen had a chance to provide that for Virginians during his first term in the Senate but all we got was more reckless spending and empty partisan rhetoric. And based on his reelection campaign that appears to be all we would get again.”
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