Governor Bob McDonnell reluctantly agreed that President Obama’s stimulus money helped Virginia come out of the recession. He did say he didn’t think it would help in the long run. Good for Gov. McDonnell for admitting that something the President has done was a good thing.
It wasn’t “President Obama’s stimulus money.” It was borrowed money for which all the taxpayers will foot the bill. If Virginia was going to be paying the bill for it anyway, it might as well have benefitted from some of it in the short term. Of course, we’ll all pay later–in spades, and for generations.
4 million per job. 831 billion in stimulus. Stimulus that was transfer payments and thus did not raise GDP. If it does not raise GDP, it is not helping a recession.
Virginia is dependent upon increased government spending because of NOVA’s addiction to DC money. So, of course, increased gov’t spending helped VA.
THAT is a bug, not a feature. What we do need is increased energy production, industry, and private investment, not our tax money being transferred to government employees.
Sounds like giving a heroin addict some methadone.
We’re still addicted. We just have no problem that Alice stabbed Bob for us to score.
@Cargosquid
How about all of Hampton Roads being dependent on military spending? Let’s not just pick on NOVA.
We actually don’t see much of DC money. In NOVA, DC money or DC anything usually means District money rather than fed money. I forget that you aren’t a NOVA-ite.
We see federal money coming our way via defense spending. I don’t look at fed money as being an addiction. They need us. We provide the services and the technical knowledge.
I recently heard Sarah Palin laughing at and being disrespectful of the region because we don’t make anything or drill anything. Quite a bit is ‘made’ here actually. She probably just doesn’t understand it. She just sounded ignorant. (Not saying YOU are doing that….just the whole NOVA thing made me think of it.)
@marinm
What are you addicted to?
Marin, you haven’t had the realization that if you lived where you could spend zero on anything that benefited others, you wouldn’t be able to get work because what you are skilled at isn’t needed in areas where people want to live a bare bones existence.
The defense money, too, is an addiction. We need alternatives to that source because all it takes is to get a gov’t that wants to cut defense spending to the bone for…..whatever reason they deem important. The gov’t money should be EXTRA. NOT the lifeblood.
As for the NOVA, I was looking at it as the Fed. Govt growing, and those employees living in NOVA. We need to find them some PRIVATE industry jobs.
@Moon-howler
I have vices a plenty. 🙂
“…lived where you could spend zero on anything that benefited others…”
That’s the point, right? When I spend money that money should go to productive members of society that I got value out of. I don’t pay an illegal to dig a hole in my yard and then fill it back up again. I pay him to get my yard looking better than my neighbors – that has value to me.
“…you wouldn’t be able to get work because what you are skilled at isn’t needed in areas where people want to live a bare bones existence.”
The issue is now I can continue to live in that area and the government will simply subsudize my life. In a true free market in order to eat I’d have to learn a new skill, take a lower wage or move to an area where I could ply my trade. Maybe a combination of the three.
We should try to entice the gun companies to move to Virginia, away from the gun control states.
What difference does that make? Jobs are jobs.
I’m sure Martinsville, Virginia would LOVE that.
@Moon-howler
Private jobs actually produce and increase our GDP without taking from the citizens.
I still don’t have a problem with gun manufacturing going on in Virginia. Why should I care? @ Cargo
@Moon-howler
I didn’t think that you had a problem. It was a suggestion that VA should look into enticing them to increase OUR private industry.
I just want MORE private industry to take the place of gov’t spending as a part of Virginia GDP.
Take it in down your way….don’t try to kill our fatted calf. We like our fatted calf and the low unemployment.
Ah, therein lies the problem, we love our fatted calf. Tthere are three obvious problems here; one, the growing utopian (social) missions of government that go far beyond anything concieved or authorized by the framers for the federal vice state and local governments, second, the unbridled willingness to borrow and ask future generation to pay for our fatted calf now rather than later when we can afford it, and third, once we actually decide what work is appropriate for the federal government to do, the question of who should do the work. It is that third piece that really benefits NOVA and that is a problem when the Congress then directs the majority of that work to federal employees and statutorilly prohibits commercial, yellow pages kinds of work from welding to accounting and from riggers to baggage screeners from being competitively awarded to either federal employees or contractors.
@Cargosquid
That sounds like an over-simplification. I am not sure what you are saying. The defense industry is what it is. On the other hand, do you want to just let our military languish? That doesn’t sound very healthy.
We are what we are. Much of Virginia is military, military support or govt support.
NOVA is what it is and what it has been for a long time, just like Hampton Road is what it is. How do you change things that have been what they are for over a century?
@Blue
Not sure what that third component means, Blue.
@Moon-howler
We can argue all day long – and we probably would 😉 about what role the Federal government should or should be in the economy, but once the Federal government moves into an area with all its related support requirements it would be nice to know that those support services were also being provided cost effectively, particularly in those cases where the work could be provided by either government or private sector employees. Its called full and open competition with all the incentives for efficiency and innovation attendent to that. The problem is that this Administration and the Demogoges in the US Senate do not believe in competiton for federal work and have specifically prohibited it. So, to the extent possible all work now goes to Federal employees regardless of cost or performance up to the employee ceilings – and at the Federal level they keep going up.
I do think that the goverment is involved in too many things, but I resent even more the idea that competition for commercial type work is only good for private sector employees, while public employees are treated as a special protected class of employee – in Virginia and other localtions.
I don’t necessarily disagree with you.
Well, you can’t blame unions for that. Blue. The public “unions” in Virginia don’t have collective bargaining nor can they strike.
I don’t see where public employees deserve to be treated any less than private employees. Public employees nearly always belong to their respective professional associations, not unions. Examples: AMA, VEA, ALA, ABA etc.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/12/opinion/12brooks.html?_r=2&ref=opinion
Good op-ed about the problem of gov’t spending.
Excerpt: Both sides are right. But what nobody seems to be asking is: Why are important projects now unaffordable? Decades ago, when the federal and state governments were much smaller, they had the means to undertake gigantic new projects, like the Interstate Highway System and the space program. But now, when governments are bigger, they don’t.
The answer is what Jonathan Rauch of the National Journal once called demosclerosis. Over the past few decades, governments have become entwined in a series of arrangements that drain money from productive uses and direct it toward unproductive ones.
As for the military, we can definitely cut spending, as long as we do it with common sense. There are major changes that we could make.
Here’s some discussion. I bet Morris would like this. Salamander’s site has good stuff. Read it all.
http://cdrsalamander.blogspot.com/2010/10/enjoy-view-while-you-can.html
The comments are interesting. I don’t agree with all of it.
I do believe that the military is spending too much on “special” projects and not enough on basics. The Navy LCS program seems to be a waste. The F-22 and F-35 programs may be questionable, but, if they are valid….we need more, not less. The Brass seems to be very top heavy. That could be cut.
This too, I agree with, in part.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/dougbandow/2012/06/04/cut-the-federal-budget-by-killing-republican-sacred-cows/
EVERYBODY NEEDS TO GET A GRIP ON SPENDING. No one in DC is serious. Ryan’s budget is the closest. Needs work, though. No one wants to prioritize.