Virginia Dems advance budget items focused on helping with high prices

Democrats in Virginia’s General Assembly will eventually have to negotiate a final package of budget amendments with Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

Virginia House and Senate Democrats advanced state budget proposals that aim to help people struggling with the high cost of living and rejected several high-profile budget proposals from Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin. 

Del. Luke Torian said yesterday on the House floor that the proposals “focus on putting cash in our citizens’ pockets, addressing our housing crisis, expanding availability of childcare, investing in our K-12 and higher education systems, and expanding worker protections.” 

Virginia Democrats want to provide one-time income tax rebates of $200 for individuals and $400 for couples filing jointly. 

They want to increase the standard deduction, which would reduce an individual’s or couple’s taxable income. State Democrats want to increase the earned income tax credit for working people and they want to give $1,000 bonuses to teachers and school support employees. They have also proposed bonuses for state employees and state-supported local employees. 

“The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is one of the most powerful and proven tools in our country to help families with low incomes put food on the table and, on a broader scale, lift families out of poverty,” Ashley Kenneth, President and CEO of The Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis, a nonpartisan research group, said in a statement. 

Democrats did not include Youngkin’s proposals for car tax relief, getting rid of taxes on tips, or withholding funding from sanctuary cities in their package of budget proposals. Youngkin released his proposed budget amendments in December. 

House and Senate Democrats will eventually have to negotiate a final package of budget amendments with Youngkin, who is in his last year in office. Youngkin, who cannot run for re-election this fall because of term limits in the state constitution, has also proposed spending $50 million in state funds on private school vouchers, but Democrats essentially rejected that idea by not including it in their package of budget proposals. 

“Research shows that private school vouchers do not increase student success while taking away funding from what we know does work: providing reliable, ongoing support for students facing the highest barriers by strengthening state funding for the schools that serve them,” the pro-public education group Fund Our Schools said in a statement.