More Newspaper Endorsements for Deeds

Not only has The Washington Post endorsed Creigh Deeds for Governor of Virginia, so has The Virginian-Pilot, The Roanoke Times, as well as the state’s largest African-American newspaper, the Richmond Free Press.  In my neighborhood in Fairfax County, the Deeds campaign is already touting The Post endorsement with yard signs, just as they did leading up to the Democratic primary when Deeds was endorsed by The Post.

Bob McDonnell for his part, has won the endorsement of the Richmond Times Dispatch, but it’s widely known that all Media General newspapers are expected to endorse GOP candidates for statewide office. In their McDonnell endorsement, they glossed over McDonnell’s extreme right-wing social views and praised the McDonnell transportation plan which was called “dishonest” by The Post and a “farce” by The Roanoke Times.  The Virginian-Pilot said that, “Bob McDonnell’s plan is a chain-link fence of stall tactics designed to distract voters into believing that progress is being made while not providing the money to actually make it.”

As for me, I just call McDonnell’s plan gimmickry which is irresponsible and fails to address the reality in which we live: we must spend money to fix this problem and spending money means raising taxes. If we fail to do this, we risk wrecking the economies of Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads which generate the revenue which pays for the public school systems across the state. If we don’t fix this transportation mess, we’ll hurt our public schools and drive every community’s economy into the ditch.

When it comes to public schools, I’ve long believed that a strong public school system is the best economic development tool government can provide. Employers will locate in communities which value public schools. By valuing public education, I mean raising teacher pay and teacher standards. I also mean increasing funding for public schools.

These anti-tax ideologues like Bob McDonnell who dominate the GOP want the best of everything but they don’t want to pay for it. They always seem to believe that if we just cut back “waste, fraud and abuse” in government, we won’t have to raise taxes for anything. The reality is, we DO need to raise taxes to raise the revenue needed to fix these problems. And like that house with the leaky roof, you have to fork over the cash for the new roof eventually. If you wait too long, you can end up making a bad problem worse.

That’s what we face in Virginia. It’s time for a governor who will address the transportation problem with realistic solutions with bi-partisan support. Creigh Deeds is the best choice to lead us to a solution which will engender the most support in the legislature.