This November, Virginians will have the opportunity to elect their next governor. While there is no way to tell who will win the hotly contested Democratic primary, Ed Gillespie has emerged as the frontrunner on the Republican side. Gillespie, aware of his lead in the race, has started to release more detailed fiscal and social policies which he would like to see implemented. These ideas mimic right-wing policies in other states which have proven to be ineffective. If elected, Gillespie would have nothing new to offer Virginia — dragging us backward instead of guiding us forward.
Gillespie is making large tax cuts the centerpiece of his campaign. With these cuts, Gillespie hopes to reduce income taxes, while also encouraging localities to reduce business taxes. He believes these tax cuts will pay for themselves, despite the evidence tax cuts like this do not recover the lost revenue. Kansas Governor Sam Brownback has already conducted a similar experiment, claiming the economic growth ignited by the cuts would offset any losses in tax revenue. Instead of the revenue Brownback was predicting, the state has since struggled to fund schools and social services. To mitigate the risk of the cuts occurring, Gillespie has suggested revenue triggers, meaning that these tax cuts would only take effect if the state collected enough revenue to offset them. This seems like a good idea at first, but these revenue triggers have already been tried in Oklahoma, where they led to a ballooning budget deficit.
Even Gillespie’s rival in the Republican primary, state Sen. Frank W. Wagner (R-Virginia Beach) called Gillespie’s tax plan a “lazy political stunt” by someone who “doesn’t have a clue” about Virginia’s finances. Instead of committing to pragmatically working to improve the Commonwealth for all its people, Gillespie’s tax plan has shown he has more of a commitment to the highest earners than to the well being of all Virginians.
To justify such tax cuts, Gillespie has decided to paint Virginia as a state in dire need of economic rescue. He used a statistic on his website ranking Virginia as 48th out of 50 states in economic growth. To make his point, Gillespie is pushing an old statistic from 2013, when in reality Virginia is now ranked 33rd. Gillespie also claimed more businesses were closing than opening in Virginia, which would justify business tax reform, but Politifact rated that statement false. Gillespie also fails to take into account that wages have been increasing for the last few years. Things in Virginia are by no means perfect, but we are not in the dire economic situation that Gillespie suggests.
On his website, Gillespie also has a tab labeled “Timeless Conservative Principles,” where he outlines his positions on social issues, one of which is abortion. Under this section, Gillespie portrays himself as adamantly pro-life and confusingly describes his approach to abortion as ensuring “every woman has the opportunity to choose life.” That is a curious approach, considering the definition of being pro-choice is giving people the opportunity to chose. In reality Gillespie wants to take away that choice, which he demonstrated in a recent statement where he said he would like to see all abortion banned.
Missing from Gillespie’s conservative values page are his policies regarding Virginia’s LGBT community. These views are most likely missing because of the problems with the repealed anti-transgender “bathroom bill” in North Carolina, which would have cost the state $3.7 billion dollars in lost business in the next 12 years had it stayed in place. Instead of learning from North Carolina, it seems Gillespie has bought into the hysteria. According to his spokesman, Gillespie is against allowing transgender people to use the bathroom corresponding to their gender identity.
Instead of improving the Commonwealth, Gillespie seems intent on recreating failed right-wing experiments. Instead of bringing us forward, these policies take us back. Rather than instituting these tax cuts, we should instead invest more in education to ensure Virginia has the highly-trained workforce it needs to attract more businesses to our state. Instead of instituting anti-LGBT policies, we should seek to ensure Virginia welcomes people from all walks of life. Investing in our people and not giving out tax breaks to the richest among us is the best way to move Virginia forward.
Jacob Asch is an Opinion columnist for the Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at opinion@cavalierdaily.com.
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