State lawmakers will have an extra $600 million to play with when it reconvenes in January and next, but Del. Vincent F. Callahan Jr., R-Fairfax, chairman of the House Appropriations committee, is urging fiscal caution. Revenue growth is slowing from the double-digit rate of the past few years to a single-digit rate.
Says Callahan: “We can ill afford to repeat mistakes of the past, where, in times of what appears to be plenty, we created costly new programs before fulfilling previously made commitments.” He recommended spending the money on one-time expenditures such as construction projects rather than ramping up new programs. (The Richmond Times-Dispatch has the story. So does the Washington Post. And the Virginian-Pilot.)
Callahan makes total sense to me. However, I suspect that Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, now on an economic development mission in Europe, may disagree.
