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To: Interested Parties From: Tim Miller, Executive Director, America Rising PAC Date: September 13, 2013 Subject:
Terry McAuliffe Can’t Explain How He Will Fund His “Shoot For
The Moon” Plans
Once again, Terry McAuliffe is making a lot of empty promises to Virginia voters. In 2009, McAuliffe was the target of criticism from his fellow Democrats, when Creigh Deeds said McAuliffe had no plan to pay for his proposals.
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McAuliffe
defended himself by saying a candidate should have “shoot for the moon” policies.
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In other words, make promises that are not based in reality. McAuliffe is continuing this lack of policy clarity in his second run for governor. He has not explained how he will pay for the hundreds of millions of dollars in new spending he is proposing.
An analysis of Terry McAuliffe’s campaign promises by America Rising found that there are billions in unfunded priorities he’s proposed to Virginians. In education alone, he’s offered two proposals that will cost nearly $1 billion. The following chart highlights Terry McAuliffe’s public campaign promises,
none of which he has a plan to pay for.
McAuliffe Promise Cost How He Pays For Them Higher Teacher Pay
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$700 Million Per Year No Funding Source Increased Funds To Make College More Affordable
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$225 Million Per Year No Funding Source Better Retirement Benefits For Teachers
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? No Funding Source Higher Spending On K-12 Education
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? No Funding Source Increased Research Funds For Virginia Universities
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? No Funding Source Increased Spending On The Tourism Sector
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? No Funding Source Increased Spending On Inner-City Passenger Rail
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? No Funding Source Expanding Rail Service To More Places In Virginia
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? No Funding Source Funding For Expanded Rural Healthcare Delivery
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? No Funding Source Increased Funding For Mental Health Services
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? No Funding Source
Below are two of these unfunded “shoot for the moon” promises.
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McAuliffe’s Educations Proposals Alone Would Cost Nearly $1 Billion Per
Year
Unfunded Promise: Nearly $700 Million Per Year To Raise Teacher Pay
Terry McAuliffe has promised a number of new big-
spending items for Virginia’s education system.
Firstly, he has called for paying teachers the national average salary for public school teachers, a policy proposal that likely gained him the endorsement of the Virginia Education Association
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:
Terry McAuliffe
: “You’ve gotta have an education system that is training o
ur students for the
future workforce. And that’s what I focus on. We gotta start paying our teachers what they’re
worth. We gotta quit
demonizing teachers, which happens every day. And most of you’ve
heard me talk about this. In Virginia, if you take average Virginia pay to average teacher
pay, do you know where we rank among the fifty states. We’re fiftieth, we’re dead last. Now, I want to keep the best teachers, I want to recruit the best teachers. But we can’t be fiftieth out of fifty, we’re the eighth w
ealthiest state in United States of America. We take retirement
benefits away from our teachers, we don’t give them the pay that they deserve.
So as Governor, I want to make sure we pay our teachers the national average, in order for us to get the best possible teachers.
”
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According to the National Education Association (NEA), the largest national teachers’ union, in the
2011-2012 school year, Virginia employed 103,908 public school teachers.
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The NEA also highlights that for the same school year Virginia experienced an average $6,715 pay gap from the national
average (Virginia’s average salary was $48,703, the national average was $55,418).
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Based on these numbers, raising teacher pay to match the national average would lead to nearly $700 million in new spending each year. McAuliffe has no way to pay for it.
Unfunded Promise: Nearly $225 Million Per Year To Fund Community Colleges
When speaking to a Google Hangout education forum hosted by Virginia21, McAuliffe said, “
But I will
ensure as Governor, I promise ya, that we’re gonna have the necessary funds we need so that everybody can afford to go to college and it’s not such an exorbitant cost.”
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In more specific terms, McAuliffe and his campaign have consistently highlighted what they call a funding gap for students attending community college. McAuliffe has called for closing a $1,908 per student funding gap.
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McAuliffe has claimed he will find new funding sources for this expense, without clarifying:
He added those programs need new funding.
“We have cut the community colleges,” he said. “From 2008, the commonwealth’s contribution was about $4,400 per student. It has dropped today to $2,500 per student.”
He acknowledged the per-student figure declined partly from budget cuts and partly because more people enrolled in community colleges during those years.
But, “I have consistently said that education is not an expense; it is an investment,” McAuliffe said, adding he’d “pick up the phone” to find new funding sources in b
oth the state and federal governments.
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Picking up the phone to find funding will almost definitely not do the trick to pay for what would be about $900 million in new spending on community colleges over the next four years. According to the Virginia Community College System (VCCS), for the 2012-2013 school year 123,651 are enrolled in