{"id":3319,"date":"2011-08-16T08:00:28","date_gmt":"2011-08-16T12:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=3319"},"modified":"2011-08-16T08:00:58","modified_gmt":"2011-08-16T12:00:58","slug":"an-interesting-new-face","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=3319","title":{"rendered":"An Interesting New Face"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/virginia-politics\/post\/mcdonnell-named-chairman-of-republican-governors-association\/2011\/08\/14\/gIQALKxmGJ_blog.html?hpid=z4\">Washington Post<\/a> reported that\u00a0Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell has been named chairman of the Republican Governors Association. \u00a0He replaces Rick Perry, who resigned in order to focus on his presidential campaign.<\/p>\n<p>Governor McDonnell has done a good job of restoring fiscal responsibility to Virginia. Wikipedia reports:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>The first budget enacted under the McDonnell administration took effect on July 1, 2010.<sup id=\"cite_ref-167\"><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bob_McDonnell#cite_note-167\">[168]<\/a><\/sup> Two of McDonnell&#8217;s legislative initiatives did increase the surplus for the 2009-2010 fiscal year. First, the budget bill accelerated the payment of state sales taxes resulting in a one-time shift of revenues that would otherwise have been collected in July 2010 into the old fiscal year. Second, the budget bill deferred a $620 million payment to the <a title=\"Virginia Retirement System\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Virginia_Retirement_System\">Virginia Retirement System<\/a> to future years.<sup id=\"cite_ref-168\"><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bob_McDonnell#cite_note-168\">[169]<\/a><\/sup> The end of year surplus will trigger the payment of a 3% bonus to state employees in December 2010.<sup id=\"cite_ref-169\"><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bob_McDonnell#cite_note-169\">[170]<\/a><\/sup><sup id=\"cite_ref-170\"><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bob_McDonnell#cite_note-170\">[171]<\/a><\/sup> Both Republicans and Democrats responded by asking McDonnell to use the surplus to reverse the Virginia Retirement System deferral.<sup id=\"cite_ref-171\"><a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Bob_McDonnell#cite_note-171\">[172]<\/a>\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/sup><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Appointing Governor McDonnell to this position gives him more visibility. \u00a0The Washington Post reports that his approval rating in Virginia is 62 percent favorable and 26 percent unfavorable. He is one of the most popular governors in America.<\/p>\n<p>I hate to be cynical, but.. prepare for the attack pieces on Governor McDonnell. \u00a0He will be on the short list for Vice-President in 2012, and if he is interested, he would be a viable presidential candidate in 2016 or 2020.<\/p>\n<p>This is a man to watch.<\/p>\n<div class=\"zemanta-pixie\" style=\"margin-top: 10px; height: 15px;\"><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" style=\"border: none; float: right;\" src=\"http:\/\/img.zemanta.com\/zemified_e.png?x-id=ed850f92-6949-4f2c-a9a6-5951f120b157\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday the Washington Post reported that\u00a0Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell has been named chairman of the Republican Governors Association. \u00a0He replaces Rick Perry, who resigned in order to focus on his presidential campaign. Governor McDonnell has done a good job of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=3319\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[38,39,16,37],"class_list":["post-3319","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-governor-rick-perry","tag-republican-governors-association","tag-rick-perry","tag-virginia-gov-bob-mcdonnell"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3319","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3319"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3319\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3322,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3319\/revisions\/3322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}