Well, at least Bob McDonnell is honest about something. Check this out from the DPVA:
GRIDLOCK BOB RAIDS SCHOOLS FOR ROADS
McDONNELL: "I DON'T HAVE A PARTICULAR PLAN OR VISION"
RICHMOND - Today Bob McDonnell finally released a plan to pay for transportation. But McDonnell's funding scheme is bad news for Virginia schoolkids. McDonnell uses at least three mechanisms to fund roads by draining money from schools.
This should come as no surprise to Virginians, considering that shortly after announcing his candidacy for Governor, then Attorney General Bob McDonnell admitted that he had no plan to fix Virginia's transportation problems.
"'I don't have a particular plan or vision,' said McDonnell when queried yesterday in a conference call with reporters on how he would fix the 2007 transportation plan gutted last month by the Virginia Supreme Court." (Richmond Times Dispatch, 3/26/08)
Some things haven't changed!
Specifically, McDonnell's plan would:
*Drain $1 billion from the General Fund-- a key source of public school funding--by diverting a percentage of the sales tax in Northern Virginia to transportation.
*Weaken future increases in public education funding by requiring that a percentage of future growth revenue over 3% be devoted to transportation.
*Squeeze funding out of an already underfunded public school system by devoting a full 75% of annual budget surplus revenue to transportation (currently, two-thirds of surplus revenue is earmarked for transportation).
*Use the proceeds from selling the Port of Virginia to fund roads instead of schools.
"You can't be serious," said Democratic Party of Virginia executive director Leigh Anne Collier. "This is the same funding gimmick Virginia Republicans have tried for years. Taking money from schools to pay for transportation may try to solve one problem, but it just creates another. Bob McDonnell's so called plan is nothing but a big shell game, and Virginia's kids are the ones who lose."
Yet another version of Republican "trickle down" economics from the guy who says that George W. Bush is his economics role model? Yeah, just what we need as governor. Not.
