Cooperation in the General Assembly: The failures of the General Assembly to fix Virginia’s transportation problems have been due to excessive political fighting and provincialism. As a result, northern Virginia is getting disproportionally more of the transportation dollars than Hampton Roads. In order to keep rural legislators from blocking funding for transportation, we need to cooperate with legislators from rural areas by helping them get things they need in return for support for transportation programs. For example, we could help rural towns such as South Boston and Martinsville get better internet and transportation so that they can attract white collar jobs and stimulate their economies.

Drilling for Oil that is Not There is Fiscally Irresponsible: First, it is fiscally irresponsible to spend millions of dollars drilling for oil or natural gas when seismic studies by a consortium of big oil companies did not show any evidence of possible worthwhile deposits off the Virginia coast. Second, since there are proven large deposits of oil and natural gas in the Gulf of Mexico that have not been drilled, it is highly unlikely that any oil company would be interested in drilling off the Virginia Coast unless the state paid the oil companies to do it. Third, even if the state could find someone to do the drilling, Virginia will not get rich and have its funding problems solved by drilling because most or all of the money will go to the Federal government; Louisiana has had oil but is still poor. Fourth, the U.S. Navy and NASA have large sections of our coast marked off. Becoming rich by drilling offshore is a flim flam.

No To The Sale of ABC Stores: Making money now by selling the ABC stores is like killing the producing milk cow because you want meat. In order to make up for this revenue loss in the future, the state will have to raise taxes.

Friends of Bill Fleming for State Senate on Facebook