With editorials like this one, I'm starting to think that it's really possible the Washington Post won't endorse anyone for governor this year. Check this out.LISTEN TO the promises of Virginia's two gubernatorial candidates regarding higher education, and it's hard to tell the difference. Democrat R. Creigh Deeds and Republican Robert F. McDonnell both say that they will increase the number of degrees awarded while also making college more affordable. Also common to both: Neither has a clue as to where the state will find the money.The Post makes a good point; barring an incredible economic turnaround, the next governor - whoever it may be - will not have the money to do any of the things he is promising. Remember, Virginia is facing a transportation deficit estimated as high as $100 billion over the next 20 years. Virginia is also facing tremendous needs in many other areas, from Medicaid to public safety to cleaning up the Chesapeake Bay to... Yet Bob McDonnell hasn't given us a single realistic source of additional revenues; selling off ABC stores and offshore oil drilling are beyond laughable, and McDonnell's other "solution" - to transfer billions from education into transportation - is even worse. For his part, Creigh Deeds counts on that old chestnut, "cutting government inefficiency," when in fact Virginia's government is already bare bones, with cuts that have sliced sharply into muscle and sinew. To put it bluntly, there is no way in hell we're going to find billions of dollars a year in new revenues from enhancing "government efficiency."
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So Mr. Deeds says that he would add 70,000 degrees in the next 10 years; Mr. McDonnell promises 100,000 new degrees in the next 15 years. (Virginia's institutions awarded 56,735 degrees in 2008-09). Frankly, it's hard to keep a straight face, given the realities that have led to unstable and declining state support for higher education...
In reality, what both McDonnell and Deeds may really be counting on is a massive economic rebound that spurs a surge of tax revenues into Commonwealth coffers. Unfortunately, the chances of that happening in the next year or two are exceedingly small (more like year #3 or #4 of the next governorship, if we're lucky). All of which means that there will simply not be the revenues to do almost anything the two candidates for governor are promising us. Nada. Zilch. Zip. Anything else, as the Post writes in its editorial, is merely "empty promises."
