Responding to McWaters’ Response
By Joel McDonald • Jan 14th, 2010 • Category: Blog, Related NewsAfter Jeff McWater’s won the special election in the 8th Senate District on Tueday, I wrote that he had been pulled up from the top due to his generous contributions to the GOP. As evidence of this, and to show just how close buddies McWaters is with McDonnell et al., he was honored with the task of spewing forth conservative talking points after Kaine’s final State of the Commonwealth address. (BTW, the address is well worth the read if you have a few minutes)
Let’s review a few of those points, shall we?
“Streamline government regulations and protect the Right to Work laws that help create a favorable business climate in the Commonwealth. These policies are already a strong draw for businesses looking to locate in the Commonwealth. With the assault on business from Washington in the form of Obamacare, card check and cap and trade, Virginia’s business-friendly policies will be even more important as a last line of defense.”
So the Republican agenda in Virginia is going to be to prevent workers from organizing to decrease their ability to negotiate terms of their employment in response to the over 1 million of uninsured Virginian’s having access to health care and the national shift away from environmentally harmful methods of energy and product production? By the way, I just love how McWater’s tapped into the right fringe with his labeling health care reform as Obamacare. Real classy.
“…invest more in the Governor’s Opportunity Fund and aggressively pursue global opportunities. When it comes to attracting new businesses, Virginia is facing stronger competition from other states and countries. The Governor’s Opportunity Fund allows us to provide greater incentives for companies to locate and create jobs in Virginia.”
Here we can agree. The Governor’s Opportunity Fund was created under Gov. Wilder, a Democrat, as a method to create jobs. I’m glad Republicans are coming around to this idea, because its working. Unfortunately, Gov-Elect McDonnell voted twice to cut money from the fund, and intended to vote for a third bill. He was one of 63 House members who voted for a 2002 bill to cut $8 million from the fund. A 2004 amendment that he voted for also eliminated $3 million of a proposed $5.5 million increase to the fund. He missed, but had planned to vote for, a separate bill on funding cuts for the program in 2004.
McDonnell says times have changed. I guess so. Nice to see Republicans taking ahold of Democratic ideas and making them their own.
“Prepare Virginia’s future workforce to take on the jobs of the 21st century by recruiting the best teachers and rewarding them based on their success. Our schools must focus more on science, technology, engineering, health care and mathematics, subjects that will be the base of the jobs of the future.”
I’m interested in how the McDonnell administration is going to accomplish these goals when education in Virginia has been or is being hit by $1.4 billion in cuts, and may face a larger cut if McDonnell stays true to his pledge not to raise taxes. This decision will have to be made soon, as Kaine’s proposed budget calls for $1.9 billion in increased taxes. Bob, Jeff…we’re watching.
Related posts:
- McWaters Pens Virginian-Pilot Endorsement of Himself
- McWaters to Face Democratic Challenger in the 8th!
- It’s Jeff McWaters vs. ???
- Health Care Reform passes House of Representatives
- Obama is making a mistake in considering taxing benefits
Joel McDonald has been following Virginia politics since February 2008, starting with the Democratic Presidential Primary. Since then, he has been the primary new media contact for progressive district and statewide campaigns.
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Joel, Joel: stop lying about Right to Work laws. Perhaps you’re just ignorant, but they have NOTHING to do with “workers… organizing” or their “ability to negotiate terms of their employment.” All they do is prevent unions from extracting forced union dues from Virginia employees who don’t want to support unions or Democrat politicians who enjoy the support of union bosses. I suspect it is the latter, rather than any abiding concern over worker well-being, which is truly the source of your complaint.
And it’s pretty bold talk for someone to use disparagingly the phrase “spewing forth … talking points” in the same post in which you spew forth far-Left talking points like this:
“So the Republican agenda in Virginia is going to be to prevent workers from organizing to decrease their ability to negotiate terms of their employment in response to the over 1 million of uninsured Virginian’s having access to health care and the national shift away from environmentally harmful methods of energy and product production?”
Couldn’t you have gotten a few more buzzwords in there? It’s amazing what you can try to get away with when you have no shame.
James, I didn’t say Right to Work laws prevent workers from organizing to decrease their ability to negotiate terms of their employment. I did say that this is the GOP agenda, whereby they seek a drawn out, non-transparent, and easily corrupted method to be used for joining or forming unions. Right to Work is merely a tool to weaken unions within states like Virginia, in favor of employers. The argument is that these laws are favorable to employers, meaning companies will come to states like Virginia and jobs will be created, and the laws are hailed by conservatives as being the lynchpin of economic success in Virginia. I don’t really buy that argument, but there you go.
It amazes me how President Obama campaigned on the economy, environment, and health care, winning 53% of the vote, and yet somehow people like John Boehner, Michele Bachman, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Bob McDonnell, Jeff McWaters, etc. have been able to spin each one of these items as if doing what the people elected the president to do would bring on the end of the world. So yes, I will be bold in saying that McWaters was tasked with spewing forth proclaimations against the expansion of health care access, difficult but needed legislation to move us forward in an environmentally conscious way, the rights of workers to ensure their well being; and I do so because it’s clear to me that from the top to the bottom, the GOP is not about working to find solutions to our problems, but it is about shoring up their so called “ideals” even while the nation crumbles.
Thank you for merely repeating the buzzwords. If you don’t like them, don’t use them. Spare us the talking points.
No, no…certainly we need some more…
Like…
Obama 2012