Lt. Governor Bill Bolling...

STATEMENT OF LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR BOLLING ON PASSAGE OF SENATE BUDGET

RICHMOND – Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling today issued the following statement in response to Senate’s passage of the state budget:

“Needless to say, this has been a challenging budget year, with the Commonwealth facing a deficit of $3.7 billion. To address this shortfall we were facing significant spending reductions for most state programs. It appears as though the infusion of some $4.5 billion in federal stimulus funds will enable us to restore many of these budget cuts, at least in the short term.

“Given the significant infusion of funds provided by the federal stimulus package, I think the Senate did a good job crafting amendments to restore many of the budget cuts that had been made in the Executive Budget. However, I fear that this is a short term solution to a long term problem. By relying on one time federal funds to balance the budget we are not addressing the fundamental structural problem in the budget. Simply put, we are spending more money than we are taking in and we cannot continue to do that. Unless we see significant economic growth over the next 18 months, we will once again face massive budget shortfalls when the federal stimulus dollars expire.

“Going forward, our full attention must be directed toward effective proposals to get out economy moving again. We can do that by reducing taxes for families and businesses, eliminating unnecessary regulatory burdens, directing more resources to aggressively recruit new business and industry to Virginia and empowering the private sector to unleash the entrepreneurial spirit of America. That is what will ultimately get our economy moving again, not continual financial bail outs from Washington.”