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Youngkin strikes AGAIN! [1]

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Date: 2023-02-06  

Youngkin's incompetency fails Virginians

Governor Glenn Youngkin only had two major party platforms during his campaign; strengthen public education, while protecting their families, in addition to giving Virginians major tax cuts, starting with repealing the grocery tax. Last year he convinced the General Assembly with a 80-20 vote to repeal $1.5 billion in taxes through the grocery tax repeal, while promising those cuts wouldn’t negatively impact Virginia residents. Right off the bat, Democrat delegates had some pushback, stating public education would likely be impacted come 2024, as well as skepticism around the funding of public transportation, but both concerns were rebuffed by Republican delegates.

Now, here we are a couple weeks shy of the 2023 General Assembly session concluding and have just learned a “math error’, due to an online tool that calculates public school funding, has now shorted all the public schools in Virginia by $202 million. When the error was finally discovered, the immediate response was “oh well, too late”, so NOW WHAT?!? The most frustrating part is this math error occurred because the online tool wasn’t properly updated to account for the repealed grocery tax, which we were AGAIN assured wouldn’t impact us negatively.

All of this is happening when we are seeing the education profession under assault and underfunded, nationally and at the state level. Right now in VAD71, specifically the WJCC school district, educators and staff are being paid 20% below the national average and 10% below the Virginia average, and being asked “do you want raises, or more staff (resources)”? This should not even be a question, they deserve BOTH! Now we’re being informed we have less money to make any type of change to salaries or staffing, because our Governor and his administration failed math. And it comes just months after a this same administration failed to process thousands of new voter registrations, causing backlogs and financial burdens throughout the Commonwealth.

And worst off this “math error” will disproportionately harm our most vulnerable communities, who already lack local tax funding, due to being in lower income localities. But most importantly, a quick message to Virginia Republican voters (past, present, but hopefully not in the future), this MASSIVE financial disparity of public school funds, is impacting three counties in particular; Pulaski Co. (70% Republican) Grayson Co. (80% Republican) & Roanoke (50/50 is split). Governor Youngkin is NOT working for us or our families, and sadly now our children will suffer because of his incompetency. Please follow, share and donate to help me make the General Assembly a little bluer come this November election.

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Full article here:

www.washingtonpost.com/.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/6/2151436/-Youngkin-strikes-AGAIN

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