California has the highest energy and housing costs in the continental United States, the nation’s highest unemployment and poverty rates, and multibillion-dollar deficits as far as the state’s legislative analyst office can see. But Abigail Spanberger, who has just been sworn in as the new governor of Virginia, has apparently seen these results and has decided she wants to inflict on her state exactly what California has suffered under Democratic management.
On her first day in office, Spanberger made Virginia a sanctuary state, like California, by chucking out former-Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s executive order that directed state and local law enforcement agencies to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement officials. Instead of detaining illegal immigrants charged with violent crimes so Immigration and Customs Enforcement can deport them in an orderly and peaceful way, Spanberger intends to release them into the community where they can commit more crimes and where ICE will have to track them down and arrest them in less-than-ideal circumstances, presumably with activists interfering as encouraged by Democrats.
Spanberger tapped state Sen. Adam Ebbin, a Democrat, to be her marijuana czar, with the goal of breaking down local barriers to dispensaries so that they can sell their poison on street corners, including within 1,000 feet of schools.
Spanberger also signed an “affordability” executive order directing all state agencies to identify policies that “will reduce costs for Virginians.” But we already know from her election campaign what those policies are, and they all will raise costs for Virginians, not lower them.
Spanberger wants to increase the time and cost for landlords to evict tenants from their properties, which will increase rents, drive down real estate investments, and stanch housing supply. She also wants to force developers to build more “affordable” housing, which is really just a tax on housing construction, which will raise prices overall.
On energy, Spanberger plans to rejoin the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a multistate carbon cap-and-tax program that will raise electricity prices by hundreds of billions of dollars.
On healthcare, the governor wants to force insurance companies to cover more procedures, which, again, will drive up premiums for everyone in Virginia.
Then there are tax hikes. Democrats in Richmond are considering these to pay for new spending. They include a new personal property tax on landscaping equipment, a new 4.3% sales tax on deliveries including Uber Eats and Amazon, a hike in the hotel tax, and extending sales tax to dry cleaning, laundry, admission to fitness and sporting facilities, counseling, housekeeping, home repair, vehicle repair, storage, event planning, and digital services.
That is a whole lot of goods and services that Democrats will make more expensive and less affordable.
Raising taxes is just half of the damage Democrats are planning. They want to eliminate mandatory minimum sentencing for rape, manslaughter, assault of a law enforcement officer, possession and distribution of child pornography, and all repeat violent felonies. They want to weaken punishment and sentencing rules for robbery. They are going to move the Department of Juvenile Justice from the Secretary of Public Safety to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, essentially making juvenile crime an issue of public health rather than one of public safety.
Virginia is blessed with the Pentagon, numerous military bases, and the proximity of many federal agency headquarters, but it does not have California’s temperate climate or sun-soaked beaches. It is not a state where wealthy people from around the world want to live because of its beauty. Nor is it a natural draw for employers.
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Spanberger’s high taxes, burdensome regulations, and soft-on-crime policies will make Virginia less affordable, less safe, and less attractive to live or do business in. Residents and businesses will find it easy to hop on I-95 and relocate to better-run states under Republican governors, such as South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida.
We hope Virginia voters wise up and stop electing Democrats before their exercise of the franchise hands ultimate power to Big Labor. The results of doing so are plain in California, and sensible people choose to avoid such things.