Majority Leader and House Republicans put politics ahead of schoolchildren
By: pitin
Published On: 9/5/2006 3:40:49 PM
I was outraged yet again when I was reminded last Tuesday that the Republicans in the House of Delegates just don't get it. I'm sure most everyone knows at this point that there was an acocunting error in the preparation of the budget that Governor Warner developed as he was leaving office. We all know that that error wasn't discovered by the Kaine administration and wasn't shared with them by the outgoing Warner administration. Nobody likes it, but errors happen.
However, when confronted with the error (discovered by officials at Fairfax County Public Schools), Governor Kaine immediately contacted the House and Senate Republican leadership and let them know, including Fairfax's very own Vince Callahan, Chairman of the House Appropriations committee. The Governor's office provided legislation that would correct the problem, so that Virginia's children wouldn't suffer from a mistake its leaders made. This was July.
When the House and Senate met last Monday to vote on other legislation as well as correct this problem, the Senate acted in the responsible manner it ordinarily does and passed the legistation. But what did we get from the Republican Majority in the House of Delegates? Well, we got this, " If Del. Morgan Griffith of Salem has anything to say about it, Virginia lawmakers won't soon forget about a recently exposed $137 million error in the state budget." What we didn't get from the House Republicans was responsible leadership. We didn't get a vote to fix this, THEN a series of recriminations over how it happened and who should be held responsible. We just got another sad attempt by the House Republicans to put politics ahead of people. As the author of the article himself points out, " The Senate last week approved Kaine's request to provide school districts with about $60 million to offset the effect of the budget error. The House introduced a similar bill but won't act on it until late this month." Hopefully, it won't be too late for the programs this missing money is supposed to fund. What a shame House Republicans care more about scoring cheap political points than they do about the effects their actions have on Virginia's future, our schoolchildren.
Governor Warner says it best at the end of the article when he notes, "I think the House should decide whether they want to play politics or they want to fix it." Couldn't have said it better myself Mr. President, er.. Governor.
Comments
I know this is old news (pitin - 9/5/2006 3:41:37 PM)
But hadn't had a chance to write about it, and the problem is still not fixed, so there you go...
Good Diary (Ben - 9/5/2006 3:49:42 PM)
Did the House vote to wait until September or did they keep it bottled up in some committee? If it was bottled up- did the Dems try anything to bring it to the floor?
Republican Leadership (Gordie - 9/5/2006 10:09:28 PM)
It does not seem to matter if it is in DC or in VA, Repub's screw up enough to hang themselves, but the voter's forget when they go to vote.