General Assembly Going Into OT on Budget?

Will the Virginia General Assembly need overtime to complete work on a budget for the Commonwealth? Maybe, maybe not.

House and Senate budget negotiators reached a tentative deal about midnight Friday on the state’s $77 billion two-year budget.

The accord leaves in doubt whether the General Assembly will take a rushed final vote on the 16-month spending blueprint late today or adjourn late for the sixth time in eight years.

Six senators and six House members bickered right up to the moment they sealed the deal with a handshake minutes before midnight.

I love the part about "bicker[ing] right up to the moment they sealed the deal," but hey, this is the "making of sausage" after all - not pretty, but it's how legislation usually gets done.

By the way, thank goodness for Barack Obama, the Democratic Congress, and three moderate Republicans (Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, Arlen Specter) for the federal economic recovery and investment package.

The consensus the two sides reached uses about $1 billion in federal stimulus money to offset a $3.7 billion shortfall, the deepest on record in Virginia.

It would restore many of the cuts a plunging economy and poor tax collections forced on health care, public safety and education.

Remember, every single House of Representatives Republican, including so-called "moderates" like Frank Wolf, voted against the "stimulus" package. If they had had their way, those cuts to Virginia "health care, public safety and education" would NOT have been restored, and we'd have Cantor, Wittman, Wolf et al. to thank for it. This is exactly why we need to help Glenn Nye and Tom Perriello, both in "swing" districts, to retain their seats in 2010. That work starts right now.