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Budget will dominate session Date published: 1/10/2010
BY CHELYEN DAVIS
Ask any state legislator what the dominant issue will be for the 2010 session beginning Wednesday, and the answer is likely to be the same: the budget. The General Assembly will spend two months in Richmond, trying to write a new two-year budget that will have about $4 billion less than expected. Outgoing Gov. Tim Kaine wrote a version of the budget that made about $2 billion in cuts, but then made up the rest with tax increases that Republicans say are non-starters. So they'll have to find other places to shave that $2 billion from state spending. The budget-writing is done by two committees, so most legislators won't have much say in it until near the end of the session. But the budget will be an undercurrent throughout the session, as bills likely to cost money get killed and legislators submit their own ideas for how to cut state spending. For state Sen. Edd Houck, D-Spotsylvania, the budget will be so dominant that he might not even submit bills of his own. Houck is the ranking Democrat on the budget-writing Senate Finance Committee and an influential budget negotiator. "My focus is on budget, budget, budget," Houck said. 'The 2010 session, for me, is damage control, trying to control the amount of damage we do to core state government services." Kaine's proposed budget makes cuts to education and health safety-net services, both of which Houck said he will try to protect. But he doesn't expect a session-prolonging fight between Senate Democrats and House Republicans over the tax increases Kaine embedded in that budget. "I don't believe there will be a fight over the income-tax proposal. I'm not sure that's picking up a lot of support even among some of the Democrats," Houck said. "It would be different if there was some signal of compromise from the House Republicans and from the governor-elect. What we keep hearing and what they keep announcing is that there will be no tax increases. And you take them at their word. Democrats are beginning to talk about 'This is a non-starter, so what's the use?'" Other local legislators all said the budget was the biggest issue going into the session, but none of them apart from Houck is on the committees that do most of the budget work.
Del. Mark Cole, R-, has a bill that would exempt from federal interstate commerce laws any goods or services in Virginia that don't cross state lines. If they don't cross state lines how is it interstate commerce. DAH !!!
Prediction. State law makers will vote themselves a raise,
just like the Md ones are planning. Most school supers will
get a raise as will most the administrations, while the blue
collar workers will not get a COLA or even get a pink slip, as
the teachers continue to actually lose money from their
paychecks. Thank God Obama is giving us a great health
care system!!! Whew, big relief.
that the USA Federal Government will implode and the States will drift into the spheres of influence closest to them geographically. i.e. East Coast to Europe, West Coast-China and Japan etc.
That would happen peacefully as the Federal Government becomes less important in the governance of the Country. The Federal government serves and exists with the consent of the people. If the people no longer consent then the States are the entities calling the shots.
That will not happen, but decline of power will
Using the 10th Amendment, at least 8 states are or have passed legislation that denies the feds the authority to control products made and used only in intrastate commerce. Primarily they are using firearm commerce as the test. The BATFU has come out and blatantly said it would ignore the state laws. The feds only have the authority over interstate commerce and are denied it over intrastate commerce by the 10th Amend. This is going to get interesting if fed agents are arrested for violating state laws.
It looks as if our Virginia State Legislators could teach their Federal counterparts a lesson in priorities. They understand their role, and that is to serve the people of Virginia by doing what we ask them to do, not what their personal agenda leads them to do.
Shame on the Federal elected politicians who have their own and their party's priorities as their guiding light.
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