Democratic Party gubernatorial-nomination candidate Terry McAuliffe rolled out the second chapter of his Business Plan for Virginia Monday in Danville – and this one is pretty easy to get a handle on.
“As I’ve been saying wherever I go across Virginia, there’s no such thing as a Republican job or a Democratic job – we simply need to bring people together to create good jobs, and that’s what I’ve been doing my whole life,” McAuliffe said. “My Business Plan for Virginia is really a jobs plan – my number one priority as governor will be to create, attract, and keep good jobs with good wages and benefits for every Virginia family.”
I remember McAuliffe during a visit to Harrisonburg several weeks ago talking about the woefully underfunded Governor’s Opportunity Fund, which is pennies on the dollar to states surrounding us in the South and Mid-Atlantic. He said in the course of talking up his business plan on Monday that the state will have to boost what it can offer in terms of incentives, including tax credits for business development, outright financial assistance and infrastructure-development grants, to get Virginia’s economy moving.
McAuliffe also talked up a pilot project to push job growth that would refund to businesses in high-need areas the increase in federal payroll tax over the previous year for new jobs they create in Virginia and another that would defer the taxable income of qualified startup businesses at the outset of their existence to allow them to better use their resources to finance job growth.
“As a businessman, I understand the challenges facing our communities today,” McAuliffe said. “While we need to bring in industries that can create thousands of good jobs, we also need to help small businesses start and flourish here in Virginia. Nearly half of Virginia’s workforce is employed at small businesses, so when our small businesses are successful, so are our families and communities.”
– Story by Chris Graham
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