Glenn Youngkin, lame-duck Virginia Republican governor, desperately wants his legacy basketball-hockey arena in Alexandria, and will use anything he can find in terms of data to try to leverage Democrats into backing his boondoggle.
Today’s attempt: making the state’s rosy jobs picture about his policies.
“In February, we set a new record-high number of Virginians in the labor force, which is encouraging for local businesses trying to fill open jobs and grow in the Commonwealth. This report reinforces the need for pro-growth policies that move Virginia forward for the Commonwealth’s economy to thrive,” Youngkin said in a statement in a press release sent to the news media by his office on Monday.
Here we go again, having to fact-check: Virginia’s economy is tied inextricably to the fate of the federal government.
Right at 30 percent of the Virginia economy is the federal government, which, translated, makes the ongoing threats by House Republicans like Ben Cline and Bob Good to shut down the federal government a clear and present danger to Virginia.
This renders comical to the point of being almost nonsensical the effort by Youngkin, using his taxpayer-funded staff, to make the Virginia economy about Republican “pro-growth policies.”
But that’s what Youngkin has been doing of late, touring the state with a sign blasting “The Backward Budget,” showing his butthurt over Democrats not acceding to his demand to commit $1.5 billion of your money toward building a new arena for his billionaire buddy, Ted Leonsis, in Alexandria.
He’s even suggested privately to top Democrats that he might veto the budget if he doesn’t get his way, putting local governments and school boards on the hook, all so a billionaire can get a $2 billion arena for pennies on the dollar.
But, hey, unemployment is 3 percent.
Not necessarily because of anything Youngkin is doing, but anyway, it’s 3 percent.
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Chris Graham
