On February 22, I wrote the following post on the implications of Bobby Jindal’s announcement that he would not accept federal stimulus dollars for the expansion of unemployment insurance benefits in Louisiana.
Bobby Jindal, the Governor of Louisiana, is really going to do it. He will tell President Obama “thanks, but no thanks” to part of the stimulus package that was to be directed to Louisiana. Jindal claims that the strings attached to obtaining stimulus funding for expanding unemployment insurance will cost Louisiana millions in the long run, so he is telling the President that Louisiana will take a pass on part of the money. Jindal’s move is likely to compel all the other GOP Governors who are actually thinking of running for President in 2012 to follow suit. So what if you’re running for statewide office in 2009 in Virginia? Will Bob McDonnell or Bill Bolling follow Jindal’s lead or do they think we should take every penny we can get our hands on? I might be wrong here, but I think that the Louisiana Governor may well have introduced a new dimension to the 2009 statewide races in Virginia.
For a while, it looked as if I was wrong.
Bob McDonnell said that he disagreed with the priorities in the stimulus package, but he would not advocate rejecting federal dollars that Virginia might obtain from the program because our taxpayers were funding it in the first place.
But the Virginia business community kept the issue on the front burner, arguing that the strings attached to the expanded benefits would impose unacceptable long-term costs.
And many conservatives asserted that requiring the state to permanently change its unemployment insurance policies as the price for obtaining the $125 million violated the basic principles of a federal system of government.
This morning, Bob McDonnell’s spokesperson, Tucker Martin, issued a statement reported in The Washington Post expanding on and modifying his previous position in a manner that echoed the stance Jindal took in February.
“Bob McDonnell is highly supportive of the stimulus money being used to compensate displaced full-time workers in Virginia. However, creating an unfunded federal mandate to permanently expand benefits with one time funding poses an undue hardship on taxpayers and employers. Thus the long-term effect would not be good for economic development.”
This afternoon the House rejected Governor Kaine’s proposal to alter the state’s unemployment insurance policies in order to obtain the $125 million in stimulus benefits.
Game On!
Whoever the Democratic candidate for Governor is (Deeds, McAuliffe or Moran) will contend that McDonnell’s willingness to forego $125 million dollars for the unemployed is a heartless rebuke to those who are suffering through no fault of their own.
The Democrats will certainly attempt to highlight McDonnell’s position in the economically distressed parts of southside and southwest Virginia where Republicans have been running very strongly in recent elections.
For his part, McDonnell will argue that accepting unfunded long-term federal mandates is not the way to create jobs and revive the Virgina economy.
McDonnell will maintain that Democratic proposals such as the federal ”card check” bill for union organizing will threaten the core of the state’s business-friendly environment.
And I have been hearing that McDonnell is at least considering a “Big Idea” such as major tax cut proposal, a Virginia-based stimulus package that would embody a very different model than the one taken by the federal government.
What emerged today was a clear contrast on a significant issue.
Isn’t this what elections should be about?
Not ‘Game On.’ ‘Game Over.’ The Ds must have been lighting candles, rubbing rabbits’ feet, and plucking 4-leaf clovers on this one. This vote won’t move Democrats or Republicans from where they are, but that tramping noise you hear will be tens, no, hundreds of thousands of swing voters–Virginians who could care less about ideology, but whose character prevent them from kicking folks when they’re down–swinging Democratic. This vote will color Virginia politics, policy and government for a generation.