McDonnell: Pledged no tax hike for transportation

Republican gubernatorial nominee Robert F. McDonnell pledged Monday not to raise taxes, vowed he’d aggressively pursue jobs and declared he’d make Virginia the East Coast’s energy capital.

Pressed on the subject of taxes during an hourlong endorsement interview at The News Virginian, McDonnell answered, “I will not raise taxes. In the worst recession in 80 years, businesses and families are struggling with their budgets and businesses. They are making tough decisions about layoffs and cutbacks. The worst thing to bring an economic turnaround is to raise taxes.”

A 12-point plan McDonnell has outlined to improve transportation includes bonds, public-private partnerships, privatizing Virginia’s ABC stores and interstate tolls on the North Carolina border.

Selling state liquor stores could bring as much as $500 million in one-time revenue, McDonnell said.

The former state attorney general from Virginia Beach said he’d like to see Virginia get an ongoing cut of the privatized ABC money.

He also said surplus revenues from Virginia’s general fund could be used, but that would not be money ticketed for education as McDonnell’s opponent, state Sen. R. Creigh Deeds, D-Bath County, has alleged.

“What he is saying is if I take money from the general fund, I would have to go into education and take it,” McDonnell said.

McDonnell called Deeds’ contention “an absolute bogus argument. He has no transportation plan.”

In addition to surplus revenues, McDonnell said he would look for efficiencies in the state budget including reduced spending in welfare, corrections and other budgets.

Jared Leopold, Deeds’ press secretary, responded to McDonnell’s criticism about the candidate’s transportation plan.

“Creigh Deeds is the only candidate with an honest and realistic transportation plan. That’s why newspapers around the state are saying Bob McDonnell’s plan is ‘dishonest’ and made of ‘smoke and mirrors.’ It’s no wonder Bob McDonnell wants to take focus off of his transportation plan to take $5.4 billion from Virginia schools and core priorities.”

Deeds has said he’d seek to craft a bipartisan transportation plan if elected but he has not elaborated.

Jobs are the issue driving the gubernatorial election, McDonnell said, vowing to work to create a climate attractive to business that includes low taxes and regulation and protecting the commonwealth’s right-to-work law.

But he said more incentives are necessary to compete regionally and globally for new business.

“We have fallen behind other states in the dollars available for economic incentives,” McDonnell said.

North Carolina at one point had three times the incentives to attract business Virginia did, McDonnell said.

“For four years we’ve been the best state for business. But we can’t rely on our reputation. We’ve got to understand North Carolina, Tennessee, Taiwan, Ireland and Singapore are coming up with great incentives,” he said.

Among the changes McDonnell advocates is doubling the Governor’s Opportunity Fund, and he wants to provide tax credits for tourism and film development.

Part of a new jobs strategy is to make Virginia the East Coast energy capital by taking advantage of the natural gas and coal resources here.

McDonnell said an innovation like carbon sequestration can be used to help the coal industry with long-term carbon storage, and he wants Virginia to be the first state to drill offshore for oil and natural gas.

If the drilling happens, McDonnell said, 80 percent of the revenues could be used for transportation, and 20 percent for alternative energy research.

And while it could take years, McDonnell wants to lobby the federal government to build a nuclear reactor in the state.

As he has since launching his campaign, McDonnell sought to focus the discussion on jobs, but still contended with political fallout from a 1989 thesis in which he labeled working women a “detriment” to the family.

On Monday, McDonnell further clarified the thesis, saying “five of six sentences” had been taken from a 100-page document to paint him as an extremist.

“The point of the thesis was that families are the bedrock of society,” said McDonnell.

A long list of presidents, including Barack Obama, have agreed with that premise, McDonnell said.

And McDonnell said during his career as a prosecutor and attorney general, he has been known as “a social and economic conservative” who supports the marriage amendment and strong families.

Echoing his television advertising and debate responses, McDonnell cited his encouragement of his daughter as a military platoon leader in Iraq as proof of his support of working women.

McDonnell said the key to victory next month is to make certain independent voters know “that I will propose real solutions to the problems. Those voters are interested in education, transportation and lower tuition.”

And McDonnell pointed to the depth of his experience as the reason he should be chosen over Deeds.

He has worked in the military, for a Fortune 500 company and served as a prosecutor and Virginia attorney general while he said Deeds “has practiced law for 25 years.”

Leopold said, “Creigh Deeds has spent his career creating jobs and opportunities in Virginia. As a legislator, Creigh Deeds wrote Megan’s Law to protect Virginia’s children from sexual predators. He wrote the modern Governor’s Opportunity Fund, which has created 79,000 jobs in Virginia with companies like Universal Impact in Staunton. Creigh has a record of job creation, while Bob McDonnell never authored a bill to create new jobs or support public education. When it comes to creating jobs and opportunities in the Valley and across Virginia, Creigh will put his record up against Bob’s any day.”