Youngkin Opens His Contract With Virginia
Guess where Youngkin's "Day One Game Plan" earned the most applause? Opposing CRT.
Republican challenger Glenn Youngkin finally unveiled a six-point campaign for commonsense today, restoring flagging Republican confidence among the rank and file and stirring even members of the media to attention.
Even the Washington Post couldn’t help but tip their hat to the man.
Youngkin drew a cheer from supporters when he vowed to keep public schools open five days a week — something that’s already required by state law. He also promised that “I will not allow COVID lockdowns to ever occur in Virginia again,” speaking on a day when both hospitalizations and the seven-day average of daily cases in the state are at highs not seen since February.
The crowd cheered even louder when Youngkin said he would ban the teaching of critical race theory, which despite a conservative outcry is not part of the state’s education curriculum.
FACT CHECK? The Virginia Department of Education is hosting seminars with Equity Virginia talking about the appropriate way to commemorate 9/11 so as to contextualize the 20th anniversary — all using the precise methods of critical race theory — so as not to offend those who might see 9/11 differently.
Uh-huh.
Now is it the Contract With Virginia we all hoped for? Maybe not — but there is no question that thousands of TRS readers had their impact. While anything can be stronger, what Youngkin is offering path that gets this government out of the posture of treating us as infants and back into the habit of treating us as adults.
I’d make that deal, Utivich.
So here’s the deal:
Cutting Costs For Virginians
Governor Ralph Northam (D-Blackface) overtaxed Virginians and celebrated it with a multi-billion dollar surplus; McAuliffe thinks that is his money.
Youngkin is going to give your money back.
Voter approval for property tax increases is going to be an interesting nod. Doubling the standard deduction? Cutting taxes on veteran retirement pay? All good starting points for tax reform in Virginia.
Keeping Our Communities Safe
Northam and McAuliffe both have played footsie with forces that seek to defund and even disband our police — even to the point of pushing violent criminals back on our streets.
Youngkin will fully fund our law enforcement officers and bring back successful programs such as Operation Ceasefire and Project Exile.
One of the most despicable things Democrats have done in recent years is oppose Operation Ceasefire — a bipartisan and wildly successful program that was stopped for one reason alone: it was Minority Leader Todd Gilbert (R-Shenandoah) who championed the program. That’s evil, folks…
Reinvigorating Job Growth!
Both Northam and McAuliffe are working assiduously to destroy Virginia’s right to work statute and introduced forced unionism — smashing Virginia’s once stellar business rankings and taking gobs of money from labor unions to accomplish precisely that.
Youngkin will protect our right to work laws and end the tax on small business loans designed to help struggling businesses during the pandemic — at least the ones Northam couldn’t exterminate like a newborn baby.
Oh — did we mention that under McAuliffe economic growth in Virginia was 0.0%?
Banning Critical Race Theory as the ideological lens of our public education system? Using common sense and treating Virginia parents as adults? Restoring standards of excellence in the classroom? Creating 20 new charter schools in order to facilitate school choice?!?!
Making Government Work For You
Northam and McAuliffe had their chance to fix all these problems. Northam and McAuliffe made them worse.
Youngkin is painting in broad strokes here, but one could imagine why it would be hard to bullet point the sentiment that — oh, I dunno < big deep breath > — constitutional-rights-protect-natural-rights-and-no-government-has-the-right-to-take-those-away-ever-and-we-should-never-be-talking-about-shutting-down-economies-or-stripping-away-our-rights-to-religious-freedom-or-free-expression-or-self-defense-in-America-ever-because-we-are-Americans-and-Americans-do-not-do-that-to-one-another.
<GASP!>
Youngkin isn’t presenting a radical agenda for change. Rather, it’s a radical agenda to respect you as an adult — and it works.
Been awhile since we have seen that from our government, hasn’t it?
Either way, it really does seems as if Youngkin’s staff got the message in no small part thanks to many of you who saw the same problems and helped communicate those concerns up the chain of command.
Now we have something to fight for.
Anyone else ready to be proud of Virginia again?
Time to go get it.
Shaun Kenney is the editor of The Republican Standard, former chairman of the Board of Supervisors for Fluvanna County, and a former executive director of the Republican Party of Virginia.