I'm often remidned of a conversation I had with a Republican friend of mine 10 years ago who once tried to corner me about why the government needed any money much less more money. He just didn't understand.
Well, it turns out, just about every day's paper has a new example. For example, from today's Washington Post, here's Exhibit 1 - Seung Hui Cho.
In testimony before the panel, Stewart said it often takes more than a month for someone to receive court-ordered or voluntary counseling for a declared mental illness. Stewart attributed the lag in part to a lack of funding. According to the report, more than half of community mental health providers say they have less capacity today than they did a decade ago."The underlying factor here is the resources available at which to provide a full range of community mental health services are inadequate," Stewart told reporters after giving testimony at George Mason University. "We do not have an adequate enough range and comprehensiveness within that service system to assure we prevent crises and we intervene effectively during crises."
Just last week, the GOP nominated, Faisal Gill, another genius in full-fledged denial about the reality of this people-pooling-their-resources-to-help-others-experiment Democrats like to call "Government" (Republicans call it Churches), who has proposed to fund all of his proposed new lanes, rails and buses with General Fund money - the latest GOP have your cake and eat it too spin.
So here's NHFBS's list of things that aren't getting funded because our "leaders" have decided that we "don't have the money" and now have to compete against transportation under the recently passed "transportation plan."
- As the Virginia Tech massacre is bringing to light, mental health services are massively underfunded in Virginia. Article here.
- 10,000 Northern Virginia children are excluded from subsidized childcare because the House of Delegates couldn't find $18M. Article here.
- 1,800 Northern Virginia children were excluded from subsidized cihldcare because the House of Delegates wanted to save $6M of General Fund money for roads last fall. Article here.
- How long did you spend in line at the DMV last time you went? Looks like all this anti-terror stuff actually costs money? Article here.
- There's only a 56,000 more students heading to Virginia's colleges between 2004-2012 that is estimately to cost $770M +/-(CLICK HERE) - they're all going to pay for themselves, RIGHT?!?
- So when was the last time you heard of consumer protection in Virginia?
- Well our secondary schools are just fine right??? Nope. looks like 63% of Virginians say that current funding isn't adequate (see page 4). Oh well.
FILL IN YOUR OWN EXAMPLES BELOW. I'M ALL EARS. (Don't forget that I'm leaving out the $108 BILLION pound gorilla called transportation projects and a rather large orangutan called health care/uninsured persons).
Beyond that, sometimes I wonder whether leaving the $120M cut by the Estate Tax repeal in the budget may have been able to fund the services necessary to stop Cho and save the 32 lives lost at Virginia Tech. THIS is where the rubber hits the road under the philosophy of Bill Howell, Morgan Griffith, and the lynch mob in the House of Delegates. Last week, we find out the grass doesn't get mowed, now we find out people don't get mental health and due to their paranoia do things like commit mass murders.
I'm also seriously starting to wonder what it really means to be "the best managed state in the Commonwealth" when you can't even provide basic government services due to revenue starvation. My proposal for the alleged "Best Managed" State:
Undo the repeal of the Estate Tax, have the people take back that $120M/yr. from those who can afford to pay, and make a big investment in things that save people's lives and make Virginians lives better - like helping mentally ill people, giving poor children child care, improve health care, and rural kids a shot a decent secondary education?
It will be interesting to see tonight if the GOP sacrifices any of their truly fiscally responsible moderates in their quaddrennial bloodletting. God save the Commonwealth of Virginia.