See below for some highlights of where we’re current at regarding the Virginia budget, as we head into important House of Delegates (watch here) and State Senate (watch here) “money committees” meetings this afternoon. And, of course, thanks as always to Cindy Cunningham/VAPLAN for her tireless work on this stuff. As she points out, ” Gov Youngkin introduced amendments to introduced budget, $3.5 billion in expenditures—without saying how he’d pay for them,” which obviously is irresponsible and absurd. We’ll see how Sen. Janet Howell’s Finance and Appropriations Committee deals with this. (Also, see here for Senators’ budget amendments and here for Delegates’ budget amendments)
Oh, and note – as Waldo Jaquith astutely pointed out this morning – that Virginia received about $4.3 billion from the one-time/non-recurring 2021 American Rescue Plan, that this act INTENDED for the money to be spent on *pandemic relief* and *not on tax cuts*, that a conservative federal judge (ugh) blocked the US treasury from enforcing that intention, and that – not coincidentally – Gov. Youngkin is proposing $4.5 billion in tax cuts (again, despite the fact that the American Rescue Plan was a ONE-TIME infusion of money into Virginia, while many of these tax cuts would be PERMANENT). Sensing a pattern here? Hmmm…
