Thursday, August 19, 2010
Editorial: The better vote for Virginia
Del. Bob Marshall is right about one thing: Accepting federal aid is a tacit admission that Democrats voted in Virginia's better interest.
From the RoundTable blog
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Del. Bob Marshall took a jab last week at Gov. Bob McDonnell for accepting Virginia's share of a federal aid package to help recession-battered states and localities.
Because the commonwealth's Republican congressmen voted against the money bill, along with just about every other Republican, Marshall argued, "To spend this money is to tacitly accept that Reps. Cantor, Forbes, Goodlatte, Wittman and Wolf voted against Virginia's better public interest and that [Democrats] cast the better vote for Virginians."
Yes. Yes, they did.
If Virginians are less concerned with right-wing posturing than with educating their children, keeping teachers and public safety workers in their communities on the job, and paying for Medicaid, then the Democrats cast the better vote. By far.
And Republican McDonnell made the right decision for the commonwealth, without compromising his conservative principles.
For, while Republicans in Congress are counting on the public to assume that a vote against the $26.1 billion appropriation was a vote against deficit spending, that is not so. "More than past stimulus efforts," Politico reports, "the bill pays for itself through a combination of tax reforms and often painful spending cuts."
Such as: "Drug manufacturers would be squeezed again on Medicaid rebates; multinationals face tighter foreign tax credit rules to end a pattern of manipulation grown up over many years."
That's a reference to a tax credit meant to keep multinational corporations from being double-taxed, in the U.S. and abroad, for foreign-earned income. It has turned into a gigantic loophole for multinationals that pay little or no taxes on foreign earnings in either place.
Workers -- rather, former workers -- wondering where their jobs went in the economically devastated 5th Congressional District should take special note of that provision. Democratic Rep. Tom Perriello strongly supported eliminating the loophole.
And the "painful spending cuts" Politico alluded to? Among them is a 2014 sunset in higher food stamp benefits provided in last year's stimulus package.
In the end, after cutting the Obama administration's initial $50 billion package, states and localities will get aid that, "according to the Congressional Budget Office," Politico reports, "will more than pay for itself over the next decade."
The governor's spokesman, J. Tucker Martin, was less effective than he might have been in defending his boss against the GOP attack from the right.
He cited McDonnell's work with state lawmakers to cut billions in state spending to avoid raising taxes, as if that should inoculate him against conservative criticism that he is merely spending borrowed federal dollars to cushion the blow of state cuts.
Martin's response, "Washington should follow that example," makes McDonnell out to be a hypocrite. He is not. But then, a real reply would require giving congressional Democrats their due for fiscal responsibility this time.
