One reason the economy is doing so well (see below!) is the investment in American infrastructure from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and other initiatives. The White House Tuesday launched an “Invest in America” website letting everyone see where the money is going.
Legislation / Legislative Process
Spread the Word about the Republican’s Disastrous Proposed Debt Ceiling Spending Cuts (Action Item)
As America comes dangerously close to defaulting on our debt obligations, which would have catastrophic economic consequences, Speaker Kevin McCarthy continues to demand an incredible 22% domestic spending cut.
You can help pressure Republicans to back down from tanking the economy by (1) retweeting some of the latest posts from the White House Twitter feed and (2) making sure your friends and family know just how much harm such massive cuts would cause, especially to the most vulnerable Americans.
Some specific effects:
- “Thirty million fewer healthcare visits. Fewer staff, increased claims backlog, longer wait times for benefits. Almost a $30 billion shortfall for veterans funding.” Military Times, 4/24/23
- “…kick 300,000 children out of child care and Head Start, slash nutrition services for more than 1 million seniors and turn off the heat in 5 million low-income homes.” MSNBC, 4/23/23
- “…make healthcare more expensive and less accessible for 2 million vulnerable people who rely on community health centers.” MSNBC, 4/23/23
- Education Secretary Miguel Cardona “said the budget cuts would hurt students and student loan borrowers in part by eliminating loan forgiveness, ‘pulling 60,000 educators and support staff from schools’ and ‘derail(ing) the response to the youth mental health crisis in this country.'” USA Today, 4/25/23
- “…make college more expensive by reducing the maximum Pell Grant award by nearly $1,000 for the 6.6 million recipients, as well as 80,000 who will no longer receive those grants.” MSNBC, 4/23/23
Interested in an Informational Forum on the City’s Zoning Plan?
At the March 27 Full Committee meeting, we continued discussing whether to sponsor an informational forum about the City’s upcoming Draft Zoning Plan (Modules #1 and #2 of 3 are now available) on which our local party hasn’t taken a position. We did an informal straw poll at the meeting and a significant majority voted to hold a forum.
So far, most of the informational events have either been the City presenting the plan or presentations from local activist group Livable Cville; there’s not been an event where people can hear perspectives from multiple stakeholders.
We’re thinking that, in addition to being useful in and of itself, such an event can be part of our agenda of increasing outreach to the community. Working class and minority families are increasingly being priced out of the local housing market, and they need to know that we hear and share their concerns.
This will be on the agenda for the 4/24 Executive Committee meeting, so we want to check one more time to see:
1. Would you like to see this kind of multiple stakeholder panel/forum on the Draft Zoning Plan?
2. If so, what groups/people would you be most interested in hearing from?
3. Any other thoughts about this that you’d like to share with us?
Please send your thoughts to cvilledemschair@gmail.com .
More broadly on the topic of community outreach: we’re always looking for ideas and projects to increase our involvement in our community, and we would love to hear from you about what we can do in that regard (e.g. each newsletter issue now identifies a possible action item that’s relatively quick and easy for people to engage with). Please send any ideas or suggestions for anything else related to community engagement: cvilledemschair@gmail.com . Thank you!
Action Item: Save Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) from Gov. Youngkin!
Gov. Youngkin continues to work on gutting the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a crucial and highly popular multi-state cooperative effort to rein in greenhouse gasses. He couldn’t get the General Assembly to change the law that brought Virginia into RGGI, so now he’s trying to use changes to administrative regulations to get what he wants. We need to stand up for RGGI! Between now and the end of March, please post a comment opposing the governor’s actions on the State’s feedback portal.
Some background information:
“…RGGI is one of Virginia’s top global warming solutions and is currently under attack. We need you to show your support for RGGI and protect this critical program.” Environment Virginia, 3/15/23
“Gov. Glenn Youngkin wants to remove Virginia from the initiative, also known as RGGI — pronounced “Reggie” — a consortium of 12 East Coast states where energy producers trade emission reductions for credits, or buy credits to emit carbon dioxide past the capped amount.” Richmond Times-Dispatch, 3/16/23
“At a press conference organized by the League of Conservation Voters Thursday, William and Mary student Philip Ignatoff touted the benefits of the funding RGGI participation is generating and argued Virginia should lower energy bills through electricity rate reform.” Virginia Mercury, 3/16/23
New Year Brings New VA Laws
Here are a few highlights Del. Sally Hudson flagged last week:
- Thousands of Virginia workers got a raise as our minimum wage went up to $12/hr. Just two years ago, Virginia ranked dead last among Oxfam America’s worst states for workers. We’ve since climbed to the middle of the pack, as we’ve modernized the laws protecting workers’ wages and basic bargaining rights. There’s an awful lot of work still left to do, but this step is something to celebrate.
- With wages going up, Virginia also cut taxes on the things we all buy most. The state’s grocery tax has ended, another step long overdue. Virginia was one of just 13 states left in the country that still taxed grocery sales, and those days are finally done. We still have local governments that rely on grocery taxes for revenue, so there’s more we can do to ease taxes on working families.
- If you’re shopping in either Charlottesville or Albemarle County, be sure to bring a bag; there’s now a five cent tax on plastic bags.
[We got an update on this last one from the Sierra Club: you can donate your extra reusable grocery bags at Refill Renew, 171-B Allied Lane (off of McIntire Road) —or— at Dogwood Refillery, 190 Zan Road (off of Hillsdale Drive). More sites are being lined up. For info about the tax see the City of Charlottesville website.]
Senator Deeds on Mental Health Funding
State Senator Creigh Deeds got a nice year-end Op-Ed piece in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, here’s an excerpt:
“Gov. Glenn Youngkin has proposed significant investments to begin to catch up after decades of underfunding critical mental health care programs. While I applaud the governor for his intentions, I’d be remiss if I didn’t remind him and my colleagues in the General Assembly that these proposed investments should be viewed as the floor, not the ceiling. If our goal is to keep people out of crisis, then we have more work to do. The governor’s plan is a crisis-first response, closely resembling that of Arizona’s. The premise of the plan is centered around regional crisis centers with the idea that these centers would service individuals in need faster, get police officers out of emergency rooms, and take pressure off of ERs and hospitals — all policies that we can agree on and ultimately support. There’s no question that we need this response, but instead of having a “crisis-first mentality” we can do more to fix our broken system now.”