And the limits of partisanship

by Gordon C. Morse

He’s at least consistent.

And so is the press.

Gov. Glenn Youngkin told General Assembly members last week that Virginia’s economy is as strong as ever and concerns that federal employment reductions (thanks to the Trump administration) would drag down Virginia’s overall fiscal condition were exaggerated.

Every news story that followed – as best I can tell – expressed skepticism and, let’s face it, it ain’t skepticism at all. It’s flat out political opposition. The uniformity of press opinion, as expressed in the news columns (not the opinion spaces) is stunning.

“Rosy picture,” reported the Virginia Mercury.

“Rose-colored,” said the Associated Press.

“Looks rosy,” declared the Virginia-Pilot.

“Moses supposes his toeses are roses, but Moses supposes erroneously. Moses he knowses his toeses aren’t roses, as Moses supposes his toeses to be!”

Those are lyrics from “Singing in the Rain” and at least song-writers Adolph Green and Betty Comden made roses fun.

In point-of-fact, Youngkin and his fiscal managers have been saying this since last year, that the impact of federal job reductions would not be so severe and they have numbers to support this conclusion.

In response, the Democrats appear to not like these numbers and the press scribes nodded in unison.

“While you might think the Commonwealth is strong, there’s a whole lot of red flags on the horizon,” said Sen. Majority Leader Scott Surovell (D–Fairfax).

Yes, the horizon, and doubtless he’s correct about that. Wait long enough and red flags will appear and eventually take up residence in your lap. The national economy has the bad habit of cycling up and down, and Virginia is no island.

But the goodness of the current numbers (I served a governor who would happily have given a body part for the economic results Youngkin celebrated this week) does argue in support of Democratic and Republican fiscal stewardship, as they achieved these outcomes together.

So a tip of the hat to Youngkin and company. A tip of the hat to all lawmakers involved. Fiscal stewardship matters greatly and Virginia has made no big mistakes. Got plenty right even.

But there are a couple of things to be said about this – meaning Virginia’s relative fiscal standing, which oddly enough cannot be found in some magazine’s “top 10” whatever.

Out of the current situation, with matters being whipped about in Trump’s Washington, Virginia might discover some insights. We’ll need to get off the partisan routine in order to get there, however.

What exactly is Virginia’s exposure to federal spending? For as long as I can remember, the working assumption has been that Virginia has one of the highest levels of economic dependency on federal spending in the United States.

So, in the current situation, we may receive Youngkin’s report last week as good news and still regard it as counterintuitive. Virginia has long received more federal funding than it sends in tax dollars. By one account, federal spending accounts for nearly 10 percent if Virginia’s GDP.

In 2024, federal funds awarded to Virginia totaled about $188.8 billion, or $22,285 per person. That translates directly into jobs and incomes; it also points to reliance.

It was not always so, but two 20^th century wars got federal largess flowing in Virginia and the spigot remains open for the most part.

And in more than one way. Trump may be tightening the valves in some respects and that certainly gets sharply felt in Northern Virginia, but he’s gung-ho on the defense side and Virginia contractors will likely reap the benefits.

Right?

I mean, is that right? Is Virginia gaining and losing simultaneously? And on which side does the balance fall?

That would be a more interesting conversation than the same old Democrat/GOP back-and-forth blather – the blather, of course, so lovingly embraced by Virginia’s working press, such as it is.

The partisanship quite literally gets us nowhere and that’s where the press is supposed to step onto the stage and sort things out.

Instead, it frames the reporting in accordance of an all-too-familiar point-of-view, even to the point of leaning on the same “rosy” language.

Which is okay, to a point. If you live in Great Britain, for instance, you know the difference between the Daily Mail and the Daily Mirror is that the former goes right and the latter goes left.

In Virgina, presently, when it comes to news organizations, it appears to be all running in one direction: Left.

Given Virginia’s history, would you not say that’s ironic?

It is also exceedingly boring and unhelpful.

Off-hand, I know of one reporter committed to the notion that the numbers speak and we must listen. That would be Dwayne Yancey at Cardinal News.

Yancey sits there, looks at numbers, stats and charts and then gives you 183 takes on what he thinks. It gets a tad overdone at times, but he offers honest, straight-forward conclusions. He also has the experience to frame the numbers with some genuinely valuable perspective.

He’s been doing that, I think, since the Hoover administration. That puts Yancey in the “traditional” category, I suppose, and it makes him a supremely beneficial heart to have on hand.

As journalistic role models go, you could do a lot worse than Yancey. Just a thought.

This column is republished here with permission from Gordon C. Morse’s blog Heart’s Desire.