Waynesboro News Virginian Endorses Bolling for Lieutenant Governor
Paper praises Bolling's "concrete" plans and calls him "well-suited" to lead the effort on job creation
RICHMOND - Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling today was endorsed by the Waynesboro News Virginian. The News Virginian becomes the most recent paper to endorse Bolling's campaign for re-election, joining the Culpeper Star-Exponent, Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star, News & Messenger and Arlington Sun-Gazette.
In its endorsement, the paper praises Bolling's "concrete" plans for pushing the state forward on economic and transportation fronts and calls him "well-suited" for leading the effort to generate jobs.
The paper derides Wagner's attacks on Bolling's transportation plan calling her embellishments, "mostly made of the stuff found on one of those hog farms Democratic gubernatorial candidate R. Creigh Deeds talks about" and her criticism "a bogus contention".
The News Virginian goes on to say that Jody Wagner "embodies a lost year for Democrats" and calls her ticket "a wasteland on the subject of ideas."
The full text of the endorsement can be read below:
Bolling for Second Term
Seizing lines to which her party sticks, Jody M. Wagner embodies a lost year for Democrats. The transportation plan championed by gubernatorial frontman Robert F. McDonnell and his pal Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling won't work, she says, and worse (horrors!), it will steal money from classrooms and force teachers into soup kitchens.
OK, forgive us that last hyperbolic dash. The unembellished argument Wagner makes is this: McDonnell and her opponent, Bolling, want to suck $5.4 billion from education and sock it into roads. And the relevance of that argument with regard to Wagner, who seeks to supplant Bolling in the state's No. 2 job, is this: it's mostly made of the stuff found on one of those hog farms Democratic gubernatorial candidate R. Creigh Deeds talks about.
The McDonnell-Bolling approach relies almost exclusively on new, increased or surplus revenue. Wagner snarkily explains that Democrats' assertions are based on the use of general fund money, which can be pulled from a wide range of sources, rather than non-general fund money, which must be applied specifically. It's a bogus contention. It would fly if the Republican transportation plan called for slicing into existing revenues; instead, it calls for slicing into additional revenues. Big difference that one.
More telling: It's impossible to hear Democrats' plans over the sound of crickets chirping. This gets precisely at that which plagues the Democratic ticket. It is a wasteland on the subject of ideas.
This leaves voters and us to stagger into the mud as candidates sling goo at one another. Wagner says Bolling has missed 90 percent of meetings for boards and commissions to which he belongs. Bolling says Wagner forgot the time he had to devote to presiding over the Senate. This could go on forever.
Bolling's chief criticism of Wagner has been over overly optimistic revenue projections approved under her watch as secretary of finance under Gov. Timothy M. Kaine. Fingers point everywhere on this. Slightly less than two years ago, as the economy began grinding to a halt, Kaine turned in a budget with projected growth in revenues, which later flew in the opposite direction. Republicans questioned the numbers. Kaine shrugged. Wagner says Bolling skipped meetings during which he could have waved red flags. He was invited to those sessions, but not required to attend.
Apoplexy can be induced trying to unravel it all. Give Wagner this: she rightly explains that economists everywhere failed to predict the recession's depth, which threw off projections. Take this from her: GOP warnings were ignored.
What matters is that Bolling is part of a tandem with concrete, even if imperfect, plans for pushing the state forward on the economic and transportation fronts. Under McDonnell, Bolling would be charged with leading the effort to generate jobs, a task to which he's well-suited. He understands the needs of business. Now more than ever, Virginia needs such a one in the lieutenant governor's office.
http://www2.newsvirginian.com/wnv/news/opinion/editorials/article/bolling_for_second_term/47944/
