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Kaine assesses General Assembly session
Gov. Tim Kaine (D) claimed victory last Friday as he assessed the General Assembly session during a conference call with reporters.The governor's major coup for the session was the restaurant smoking ban. When the law takes effect in December, smoking will be prohibited in most Virginia restaurants.
Kaine said the smoking ban is prompted by a concern for restaurant workers' health because employees in restaurants that allow smoking are twice as likely to die of lung cancer than the national average.
“It just struck me as an anomaly that we'd be worried about people wearing hair nets in the kitchen” but not concerned with protecting workers from cancer, he said.
The governor also said he was pleased with the way he and legislators had worked together to craft a budget in a tough year.
The General Assembly members acted “honorably” to make tough decisions even though the budget contains cuts to K-12 education and between 2,000 and 3,000 state layoffs, he said.
To put the economy in perspective, Kaine said that in Gov. Mark Warner's first year in office, state revenues decreased by 3 percent. That was only the second time in 50 years that the state had seen a revenue decrease from one year to the next, he said.
This year, revenue dropped by 7.5 percent.
“We've had to make very, very difficult decisions,” Kaine said.
The good news, he added, is that it appears as though further cuts won't be necessary, in part because he and legislators made cuts with an eye on the future rather than just trying to put a Band-Aid on the current budget hole.
But if the economy doesn't improve?
“It will not be easy. It will not be pain-free but we don't shy away from making tough decisions,” he said.
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