One Year

It’s hard to believe that its been one year already. Last January, standing on the steps of the State Capitol, I pledged as your Governor to build a Commonwealth of Opportunity for all Virginians. What I said that day still stands true today: the key to ensuring opportunity for all begins with creating jobs and growing our economy.

With your support, in a tough economy, in our first year of office we have taken important steps forward towards getting our economy turned around and our state’s fiscal house in order. Together we:

• Turned a $1.8 billion shortfall in the prior budget into a $400 million surplus, while rejecting an attempt by the prior Administration to pass the largest tax increase in Virginia history;
  
• Cut $4.2 billion out of the current budget, reducing state spending to 2006 levels and again balancing our budget without raising taxes;
  
• Made Virginia the third best job creating state in the nation in 2010. We have added 67,900 jobs this past year, trailing only Texas and Pennsylvania (by contrast: in 2009 Virginia ranked 35th in the nation at job creation).

It’s a good start, but we have much more work to do before every Virginian has the good job they deserve and our state government is reformed and re-focused top to bottom. And we are just getting started.

So where do we go from here? This session we are continuing to focus on setting priorities in government, making it smaller and more efficient while at the same time investing our limited state dollars in job-creating areas that are core functions of government like higher education, economic development and transportation.

To get this done, I need to ask you a favor:

Will you show your support for our agenda by making an immediate contribution to my Opportunity Virginia PAC? Your immediate support today will help us continue to reach the goals I made when I took that oath last January.

Working across party lines, we passed a budget that closed our historic revenue shortfall through fiscally responsible spending reductions, not through tax increases on hard working Virginians. We passed strong job creation and education reform agendas with broad bipartisan support. We’ve added 67,000 new jobs and have made Virginia a national leader in job creation and economic development, all in a very tough fiscal climate. But there is much more work to do! Please help us continue building a Commonwealth of Opportunity for all Virginians by considering making a contribution to the Opportunity Virginia PAC today!

Happy New Year!

Bob