Ken Cuccinelli unveils his magical “seven-points plan” that ignores his call to slash Virginia’s revenue

I know what you’re thinking, if only Virginia’s Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli would appear before the American Legion State Convention, then he might get a little more love from Virginia’s veterans. On Saturday, Cuccinelli did just that, rolling out of the details of what he calls his “Plan for Virginia’s Veterans.”

According to Cuccinelli, there are approximately 840,000 veterans living in Virginia. Of course, we’ve already seen how forgetful Cuccinelli can be with big numbers.

But Cuccinelli can count up to seven, and he did just that on Saturday when he discussed his “seven-point plan” to help Virginia’s veterans, a plan that he claims will be put into action if he is elected as Virginia’s next governor. Let’s have a look at this seven-point plan:

·         Revising the structure of the Office of Veterans Affairs, making it report directly to the office of the governor, rather than Homeland Security. 

·         Supporting veterans health care initiatives, including continuing funding of the Virginia Wounded Warriors program, and working toward the establishment of a veterans health care center in Virginia.

·         Increasing Virginia veterans’ employment opportunities, including reforming their training and education and helping them find jobs.

·         Improving veterans' claims processing.

·         Providing more adequate funding for the Homeless Veteran Program, in order to help the program move forward.

·         Improving veterans education, including working with Virginia colleges and universities to make them more attractive and accessible to veterans.

·         Initiating a statewide campaign to inform veterans that they can use their G.I. Bill benefits for more than getting a degree, but also to gain specialized training and certificates for trades that are increasingly in demand.

·         Supporting military spouses and dependents, including supporting a constitutional amendment to make real property tax exemptions for those with spouses killed in action, and reducing more barriers to employment.

It reads like a socialist laundry-list for veterans…ahhh! But another problem stems from what Blue Virginia’s Lowell Feld points out as what I like to call the “revenue problem.” Unless Cuccinelli has created a new theory and application of economics, it’s hard to explain how increasing benefits for veterans can occur in the face of state revenue cuts that Cuccinelli also intends on executing. That is, it’s difficult to give away benefits when you’ve broken the bank.

While I would love nothing more than to see Virginia’s, and our country’s, veterans taken care of, Cuccinelli’s grand scheme (i.e., seven-point plan) is riddled with more revenue problems than Mike Tyson’s checking account.