Grabbing onto a popular, bi-partisan trend, Gov. Bob McDonnell is set to “streamline” Virginia government. He has named a 31-member panel headed by the man who led President George H.W. Bush’s unsuccessful reelection campaign in 1992.
On one level, there are reasons to examine cutting state government. The state faces a multi-billion budget shortfall, which is part of the $60 billion national shortfall that states face after the Great Recession, according to stateline.org. So, it may make sense to make sure that taxpayers are getting a decent bang for their tax buck.
To be sure, a number of states are doing this. In Washington state, Democrat Christine Gregoire, the governor, has been on a streamlining binge. She’s eliminated 75 state commissions and shut down 25 driver’s license centers, replacing them with online kiosks. Nebraska is thinking of merging staffs at community colleges. Massachusetts has merged four transportation authorities into two. And in Louisiana, the state is trying to require prison inmates to take high school GED training with the idea if they get a diploma while in the pen, they’ll likely get a job on the outside and be less likely to go back to prison and cost the state more money.
As a Republican, McDonnell likes the idea of government streamlining because it fits his political philosophy of promoting limited government. This could be his defining issue after four months of debacles that have left Virginia a national laughingstock.
Yet there are some limits to what can actually be done.
The biggest is that Virginia already seems to be doing a pretty good job in state government. The Pew Center on the States rates the state A minus, along with Utah and Washington. The average score is a B minus. Neighbor Maryland got a B and North Carolina got a B minus. West Virginia got a C plus. The ratings deal with how well a state manages employees, budget, finance, information and infrastructure.
If the Pew Center ratings are to be believed, we are not in a situation where a broken-down state government badly needs a house cleaning. This may be how McDonnell’s team projects the issue, along with their cronies in the conservative state media. But the fact remains that previous Democratic Governors Mark Warner and Tim Kaine did a pretty good job running the state. Pretending they didn’t is counter-productive.
But, as noted before, McDonnell needs a defining issue if he is to have a political future. Streamlining seems a sensible way to go, especially since loose cannon Atty. Gen. Kenneth Cuccinelli has taken all of the high ground when it comes to social, hard-right issues. In fact, the “Cooch” is making McDonnell look like a buffoon by straying so far afield by suing the EPA on carbon dioxide and harassing the University of Virginia with a Joe McCarthy-style probe on global warming (more on that tomorrow).
What the states need more than a blue ribbon commission on “streamlining” is one that creates more jobs. To his credit, McDonnell is on the case, but he’s efforts won’t even make recommendations until this fall.
Badly-hit areas such as Southside and Southwest Virginia can’t wait that long. After all, McDonnell managed to pay up to $14 million in state money to get the HQ of defense contractor Northrop Grumman to move from Los Angeles to Northern Virginia. That involves all of 300 jobs in a firm that probably would have located to the state anyway.
Peter Galuszka
