Thousands of jobs have been lost in Virginia during the last few years. Our unemployment reached a whopping 7.8 percent this past February, with areas in southside and Southwest Virginia, such as Martinsville, reaching as high as 20 percent.
In light of these difficulties, it is refreshing to have state leaders who not only promise to fix our broken economy but actually deliver.
In a country with a Congress that has approval ratings around 20 percent and an unemployment rate at 9.5 percent, it’s no surprise that people are beginning to lose faith that their elected representatives will actually abide by their campaign promises. Gov. Bob McDonnell and Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling have proven themselves to be an exception to this trend, giving Virginians real results and real change — change that the entire country deserves.
Since February, 71,500 jobs have been added in the commonwealth of Virginia.
Virginia’s unemployment rate has dropped to 7.1 percent, 2.4 percent lower than the national average, and is the 13th lowest nationally. And remarkably, 110 economic development deals have been made.
All of this has been done in the first eight months of the McDonnell administration, and these successes are only expected to continue.
Currently, Virginia is the No. 2 state for business; it was previously No. 1, until Texas edged ahead for the 2010 year.
The many accomplishments of both McDonnell and Bolling have made it evident why Virginia deserves this honor and why Virginia is seeing such improvements in its economy.
With his first executive order, McDonnell created his Economic Development and Jobs Creation Commission. He appointed Bolling as chief jobs creation officer; and a member of his cabinet, as well as the co-chair of the commission.
The commission is divided into nine subgroups. While the subgroups have been meeting and planning proposals to turn into the governor at the conclusion of the commission, both McDonnell and Bolling have been traveling nonstop in efforts to bring business and jobs to Virginia.
Bolling is at the heart of this commission and the economic development plans.
In a position that is supposedly only a part-time gig, he has clearly demonstrated his dedication and love for Virginia by putting in hours upon hours of tireless work to help improve our state.
If working overtime — such an understatement — on a part-time salary isn’t dedication, I don’t know what is.
Whether he is meeting with business leaders, making job announcements or discussing economic development plans, Bolling is constantly working hard for our state and for us, as evidenced by the constant flow of job and business deal announcements.
While announcements such as Northrop Grumman, a Fortune 500 company, moving its corporate headquarters to Northern Virginia are making headline news in the state, perhaps the more significant announcements are the ones that are hitting home in Southwest Virginia.
Martinsville, whose 20.3 percent unemployment rate is the highest in the commonwealth, has been the target of many recent job announcements and economic development efforts.
In late April, Faneuil, Inc., announced it is establishing a call center in Martinsville which would create 250 new jobs, and the company plans to expand that number by 100 within the next few years.
But the good news doesn’t stop there.
One of the more recent announcements is that two NASCAR races will be held each year at Martinsville Speedway until 2015.
It had been feared that the speedway would lose one of the races, which bring in a great amount of revenue for the city and help promote tourism.
The Tobacco Commission gave the speedway a $1.5 million grant to help fund a $3 million facility upgrade.
McDonnell, along with Bolling, have announced that the commonwealth’s 2010-12 biennial budget will have a $224 million surplus, an amazing improvement from the 2008-10 budget’s $4.2 billion shortfall.
How’s that for change?
The federal government would do well by taking a few cues from these guys.
Overwhelmingly, McDonnell and Bolling have made good on their promises to the people of Virginia.
It seems that every night on the news there is a new announcement regarding their efforts to bring business and jobs to the commonwealth.
These two have set what I hope will become a precedent for future leaders by working together on a united front to vigorously fight for the commonwealth and its people.
I know that because of them my faith has been restored in our public servants.
A version of this article appeared in the Sep 9 issue of the Collegiate Times.
Leave a comment 15 Comments Write a letter to the editor
All letters to the editor must include a name, e-mail, daytime phone number and affiliation to Virginia Tech. Affiliation includes: year and major for students; position and department for faculty and staff; current city for alumni and parents.
So what exactly did they do? All you mention is starting a committee, working hard, and BAM - new jobs.
Did they offer tax breaks or some other incentives to these companies? Did the committee come up with some great new recommendations to create jobs? I was expecting details somewhere in such a lengthy article.
Reply to this Top
I just researched the labor statistics before McDonnell took office (2009, 2008, and 2007), and it doesn't seem like he had much to do with VA's unemployment being lower than the national average. In those years, respectively, we were 2.6%, 1.9%, and 1.6% lower than the national average.
It seems like a historical comparison would be pretty important to include if you're going to give someone credit for creating jobs.
Reply to this Top
The author of this article never tried to say McDonnell was to thank for the lower than national average unemployment rate in those years you mentioned, he wasn't governor then after all. Granted, historically Virginia's unemployment rate has been lower than the national average, but that doesn't mean it automatically stays there. Jobs have to be continuously created, and that is what the author is giving credit to McDonnell and Bolling for. Over 71,000 jobs have been added to Virginia since February. That has nothing to do with historical figures, that's simply a governor working hard for his state.
Reply to this Top
So either McDonnell works just as hard as most other governors, or the job creation has more to do with Washington pouring boatloads of borrowed money into the economy than the efforts of individual states.
Top
Yea, McDonnell works just as hard as most other governors. Good one. The national unemployment rate has gone up significantly, while Virginia's hasn't. You still don't have a convincing argument that this isn't thanks to McDonnell, or at least a large portion of it.
Reply to this Top
Now if only these douche bags can clear the roads of snow this year.
these cretins cost me revenue last year because they were so busy with covering the breasts on coins and banning books with the word "vagina" in them it took them almost a week to clear the roads of the precipitation we get almost every year.
Reply to this Top
they go from
Guns don't kill people, people kill people
to
Islam kills people, people don't kill people
then From
The government shouldn't interfere in my life (while demanding the constitution be changed so as to interfere with the lives of people they hate)
to
The government needs to create jobs.
You people are dumb and make absolutely no sense at all from one minute to another.
Reply to this Top
brady, skeeter, calm down. its a collegiate times article, not a friggin book. she's sharing what mcdonnell and bolling have done and plan to do for virginia. have they created jobs? ask around. look for empirical results before parroting statistics. also, there's a difference between creating jobs by giving tax credits (essentially getting out of the way) and spending tax money (taking and giving money). mcdonnell encourages business to move to virginia and develop. obama takes a portion of my parent's money and sends it through social programs.
cretins? seriously? chill out man. the article is about jobs. no need for an anti-conservative rant.
Reply to this Top
No idea what Skeeter is talking about.
All I'm saying is that I don't see how McDonnell Bolling have done anything exceptionally better than the previous administration (jobwise). Jobs have been created but they've been created all over the country, and McDonnell has helped us keep our below-average unemployment numbers. How does McDonnell encourage business is a genuine question I have, and this article has no answers for me.
Top
To Brady,
I can't personally say how McDonnell and Bolling have helped create jobs, and a big reason for that is I haven't sat in the various meetings he has had with executives from the companies that have decided to do business in Virginia. However, you still haven't made any progress of your own in trying to take credit away from McDonnell's administration. "Jobs have been created but they've been created all over the country." Excuse me? If jobs have been created all over the country then the 7.6% unemployment rate we had when Obama took office would not be sitting at 9.6% now.
Reply to this Top
If you only look at 2010 (as the author did), then unemployment has come down nationally from 9.7% to 9.6%. Virginia, on the other hand, went up slightly from 6.9% to 7.0%.
Jobs were created, and jobs were lost; locally and around the country. In both cases they pretty much balanced each other out, so if you're going to give McDonnell credit for creating jobs you need to give him credit for killing about the same number.
Top
The author never tried to say that McDonnell reduced the state's unemployment rate or anything of that matter. The simple point she was trying to make is that McDonnell has in fact helped to create jobs in Virginia. Regardless of the net gains or losses, he has helped bring in over 71,000 jobs, jobs we wouldn't have at all if he wasn't working to create jobs.
Top
"The author never tried to say that McDonnell reduced the state's unemployment rate or anything of that matter."
What about when she says, "Virginia’s unemployment rate has dropped to 7.1 percent" without mentioning that it was actually lower than that when McDonnell took office?
Top
Ms. Stacy claims that McDonnell and Boling have created 71,000 in 2010 with no statistical back-up. She could have said 100,000 or 50,000 jobs without the statistical back-up. This article shows me nothing. As far as NasCar and Roanoke goes they are one shot deals that does not produce one permanent job but they sure make a bunch for money for the promoters. If anyone has the official Virginia job creation stats send them to me
Reply to this Top
Photo manipulation is as old as photography itself, contrary to the idea of a photo having inherent verisimilitude. Though not obviously visible to human, image manipulation can be detected by some sophisticated tools, like <a href="http://www.pskiller.com/">Photoshopped Image Killer</a>. Which tells you whether your image has been Photoshopped given the image or the image's URL.
Reply to this Top