GOP candidates tout controlled spending, budget reform

The men at the top of the Republican ticket continued to hammer a theme of controlled spending and budget reform yesterday.

Gubernatorial nominee Bob McDonnell, who is a former state attorney general, and Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling said they want to increase the amount of money the state can stash in its “rainy-day” fund. They also want to institute performance audits of major agencies and change the cycle of the state’s two-year budget.

Also yesterday, McDonnell got a boost from two prominent Republicans. He attended a fundraising breakfast in Falls Church with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Last night he was to attend a fundraiser in McLean with Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Today, Democratic nominee R. Creigh Deeds, a state senator from Bath County, is expected to collect the endorsement of former Gov. Linwood Holton, a centrist Republican who has frequently broken with his party. Holton is Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s father-in-law.

Under the plan that McDonnell and Bolling outlined, the rainy-day fund’s permissible size would rise from 10 percent to 15 percent of the state’s annual income and sales tax revenues.

The change would require a constitutional amendment. Bolling said the legislature has started the process.

When full, that fund carries more than $1 billion, but McDonnell said the budget has grown since Gov. L. Douglas Wilder started the fund, so the amount it carries also should. The House Appropriations Office anticipates the fund will total $583 million by May 31.

They also propose to change the two-year budget cycle to odd years so that a governor can oversee two biennial budgets. Currently, a governor inherits a budget written by his predecessor.

Through spokesman Jared Leopold, Deeds—whose own promise of increased government efficiency includes agency-by-agency audits and stricter spending—attacked the Republicans as irresponsible with the state’s finances.

Leopold noted that, unlike Deeds, McDonnell and Bolling opposed the $1.4 billion tax increase in 2004 that Democrats and centrist Republicans say saved Virginia’s highest-possible triple-A credit rating.

“Virginians have no reason to trust Bob McDonnell on fiscal responsibility,“ Leopold said.

Deeds is running a new television spot featuring Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner, who as governor sought the $1.4 billion tax increase.

Bolling, who is running for re-election against Democrat Jody M. Wagner, a former secretary of finance and state treasurer, talked about the need to base the state budget on more “realistic” revenue projections instead of “overly optimistic” ones.

Wagner’s campaign manager, Elisabeth Pearson, noted that Virginia has repeatedly been recognized as the “Best State for Business” by Forbes.com and others.

Ken Cuccinelli, the Republican candidate for attorney general and a state senator from Fairfax County, yesterday received the endorsement of 77 law-enforcement officials. His opponent, Del. Stephen C. Shannon, D-Fairfax, got the endorsement of the Fairfax County Chamber of Commerce’s political action committee.

Cuccinelli, meanwhile, said he has planned his first television advertisement today . It cites Cuccinelli’s role in pushing for a special session of the General Assembly to deal with a U.S. Supreme Court decision that threatened felony drug cases in Virginia.

Shannon began running TV ads last week. One ad talks about tracking online child pornography and the other focuses on the Amber Alert for missing children.

The 77 law-enforcement officers include mostly Republican sheriffs and commonwealth’s attorneys, but about 30 are independents.

Shannon also picked up law-enforcement endorsements that included the Virginia Police Benevolent Association, the Fairfax Coalition of Police, six commonwealth’s attorneys, and 17 city and county sheriffs. He also was endorsed by the Virginia Professional Firefighters.  Contact Olympia Meola at (804) 649-6812 or

. Contact Tyler Whitley at (000) 649-6780 or

. Staff writer Jeff E. Schapiro contributed to this report.