Virginia Governor McDonnell has been crowing about the state’s budget “surplus” for the past two years. The facts aren’t quite so simple, unfortunately.
According to the Washington Post, Virginia has made massive spending cuts since the recession started during the Bush Administration, slashing billions of dollars in outlays to schools, colleges and universities, and virtually every social service the state provides. The impact of those cuts was cushioned by the federal stimulus, which added hundreds of millions of dollars to cover health care for the poor through Medicaid, among other needs.
McDonnell achieved his “surplus” last year by postponing $620 million in payments owed to the state pension system. (He said the money would be repaid starting in 2013 — when his term ends.) This year he achieved a “surplus” by postponing another round of payments of $135 million to the state pension fund.
If the state were paying its debts, it would have a deficit.