McDonnell explains move to stall health care reform in VA but we shouldn’t buy it

After the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of President Obama’s health care reform legislation, it’s interesting that Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia would suddenly be so concerned with “a good use of taxpayer dollars.”[1] Virginia’s governor recently explained that his decision to not call a special session to discuss Virginia’s implementation of the Affordable Care Act is predicated upon the possibility of a Mitt Romney presidential victory.[2]

But the idea that McDonnell is concerned about putting an extra tax burden on Virginians flies in the face of a number of recent McDonnell administration moves.

First, McDonnell bribed the NFL’s second richest team from 2011[3] to the tune of a $4 million “grant”[4] to keep their headquarters in Loudoun County. The presumption was that the Washington Redskins would have moved out of state had the McDonnell administration not forked over millions of taxpayer dollars. Of course, there is no evidence to validate this claim that I’ve been able to find.  

Then there’s the use of Capitol Police to arrest dozens of peaceful protesters[5]. Useful way to spend taxpayer dollars? Not at all.

Lastly, there is the undemocratic Uranium Working Group[6] which has been used by Gov. McDonnell as a means of fast-tracking and subverting the democratic process in Virginia to move forward with uranium mining. If we just look at the price tag alone, we’d see that over a million dollars has been spent on this group with ties to the uranium mining industry.

Clearly, then, Gov. McDonnell isn’t really concerned about saving Virginia’s taxpayer dollars or doing what’s best for Virginians for that matter. To the extent that the interests of Virginians and the interests of McDonnell’s shabby political career coincide is the extent to which McDonnell can claim to be governing in Virginia’s interest. Outside of this sphere of intersection, McDonnell is just like any other cold-blooded politician, in the game for himself and his top campaign contributors.

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[1] http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/virginia-politics/2012/jul/11/tdmet01-mcdonnell-wants-more-answers-on-health-car-ar-2048000/

[2] http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/virginia-politics/2012/jul/11/tdmet01-mcdonnell-wants-more-answers-on-health-car-ar-2048000/

[3] http://www.therichest.org/sports/most-valuable-nfl-teams/

[4] http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/virginia-politics/2012/jun/07/mcdonnell-says-4-million-redskins-grant-legitimate-ar-1972937/

[5] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/03/virginia-protesters-arrested_n_1318706.html

[6] http://www.wpcva.com/opinion/article_ff34a652-c05c-11e1-a5cb-0019bb2963f4.html