The News & Record pulls no punches regarding Bob McDonnell's Local Composite Index decision.
...School divisions in struggling Southside Virginia are in line to take a tremendous budget hit this year, worse than anything we've witnessed since the Depression, and McDonnell's stand on the composite index only makes matters worse.
[...]
...it's hard to escape the conclusion that our new governor is perfectly willing to preside over the destruction of K-12 educational quality in Virginia while he and fellow Republicans worship at the altar of tax cuts and privatization of government services.
Southside Virginia, whose economy has long been crippled by low levels of educational attainment, will suffer grievous harm under the course of action that the governor and General Assembly Republicans have chosen to take. All high-minded claims of principled action on an issue that rightly strikes most people as insider baseball doesn't change this ugly fact.
The News & Record also rips Southside Republican legislators like Frank Ruff of Clarksville as "Herbert Hoover wannabes" with "an ignorance of economics" and "an appalling callousness towards public sector employees who strive every day to build better communities." Great stuff, why can't other newspapers write like this?
