See below for some reactions to Virginia being named “America’s Top State for Business in 2024” by CNBC. As Speaker Don Scott puts it, “When Democrats returned to the majority in the General Assembly [in 2020-2021], we got Virginia back on track.” And as Senate Majority Leader Scott Surovell notes, Virginia’s #1 again “even with a $12/minimum wage, collective bargaining for local government employees & the robust changes we made in 2020-21″ (e.g., hundreds of pieces of progressive legislation passed and signed into law by Gov. Ralph Northam).
Bottom line: Virginia achieving the top business ranking comes not in any way/shape/form BECAUSE of Glenn Youngkin (who loves to falsely take credit for stuff he had nothing to do with – and the media lets him get away with it!), but in SPITE of Glenn Youngkin and in SPITE of Virginia Republicans falsely fear mongering that raising them minimum wage, etc. would totally *destroy* Virginia’s attractiveness to business. To the contrary…
By the way, note this key line from CNBC’s writeup about Virginia being “America’s Top State for Business in 2024”:
“Democrats also stood in the way of Youngkin’s effort to institute a 15-week abortion ban. Opponents argued that among other things, the ban would have hurt the state’s ability to attract younger workers to the state.”
In other words, if there hadn’t been a Democratic “brick wall” in the State Senate, and/or if Democrats had lost the legislature in last November’s elections, Republicans would have rammed through an abortion ban that would have harmed Virginia’s attractiveness to business, and almost certainly cost the Commonwealth its #1 ranking.