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At some point, voters will wake up to realize that the party that aspires to cutting state taxes at all costs, is the party most responsible for eroding a wide array of services that communities, businesses and individuals rely on. With Virginia’s upcoming gubernatorial election in mind, we bring you two pieces about the likely effects of candidate Youngkin’s tax cut “aspirations”, and what happened in Kansas after then Republican governor Sam Brownback implemented his own pledge to drastically cut taxes. Also in this issue, there is a piece about the newest initiative at RappCE which may help bring some of the value from our meat industry back to our community.

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Who wins and who loses from Virginia tax cuts?

GOP gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin has made large tax cuts a central part of his campaign. In fact, he first suggested that his ultimate goal was to completely eliminate the state income tax – a tax that funds two third of all Virginia government services! Perhaps because that would have bankrupted the state government, however, Youngkin recently changed his mind. He now advocates a package of tax cuts that would reduce state revenues by “only” $1.8 billion. That certainly sounds reasonable, doesn’t it? And who doesn't like a tax cut? Read more

Youngkin’s “Aspiration”to Drastically Cut State Taxes Were a Disaster in Kansas

Even though he has backed off a plan to eliminate state income taxes, Glenn Youngkin says it is still his “aspiration” if elected governor of Virginia to make deep cuts in state taxes. It may be a good time to remind ourselves of what happened when Kansas tried that nine years ago. The cuts, especially to higher earners and small business owners, pushed by their Republican governor Sam Brownback in 2012 were meant to boost the state’s economy. Read more

RappCE To Teach Meat Cutting

Responding to a local farmer’s frustration that “we can’t get our meat processed”, Rapp Center for Education (RappCE) set out to see if they could do something about it. One thing led to another, a conversation with the Piedmont Environmental Council linked RappCE to American Farmland Trust to secure funding to set up the new program, including tuition reimbursement, curriculum and textbooks for up to nine persons from around the region. Then, there was the connection to the folks at the Range Meat Academy in Chicago, who developed an entirely digital curriculum, broken into two modules, Meat Clerk, which serves as an introduction to the field; and, Meat Cutter to teach the finer points in vivid detail “with all sorts of embedded videos and other teaching materials and textbooks”.Read more

New Rural Virginia is an organization that advocates for the wellbeing and prosperity of rural Virginians.

Suggested readings…

New child care tax credit cuts child poverty by one third (9/18/21) The rate of child poverty in the US had a remarkable drop this summer, from 15.8% to 11.9%. And that is predominantly thanks to the Biden Administration's new child care tax credit. That is the conclusion of this linked article from the Economist Magazine. The benefits to children were also very real: the percentage of families that reported not having enough food to eat dropped substantially too. A big step forward in supporting American families!

Fiscal Mismanagement: A Tale of Republican Governors As Virginians head toward this Fall’s gubernatorial election, it is worth looking back at some of the records of recent GOP governors who delivered on their election-year promises with disastrous consequences.

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