Governor Youngkin claims that Virginia’s current budget surplus means that Virginians should get a big tax cut.  But what else could we do with that budget surplus that might benefit average Virginians more than a tax cut?  How about making our higher education system more affordable and more accessible to everyone?

Because the truth is that Virginia woefully underfunds its community colleges and state universities relative to other states.  In fact, Virginia ranks 44th of all states in its per student funding of two-year colleges! At $5,000 per student, it is well below the national average of $8,000. It’s neighboring states, even West Virginia, are all above or near the national average. As a result, community college tuitions in Virginia are as much as 40% higher.  No surprise that enrollment has declined in recent years.

Virginia state universities meanwhile, despite their public mandate, are in fact catering mostly to upper income and out-of-state students.   Indeed, only 11-14% of students at top schools like UVA and William and Mary receive Pell grants, meaning these schools have very low admissions from students in families from areas like our own. That is one of the lowest rates for public universities anywhere in the country.  Why?  In large part because state universities are underfunded by the state legislature (only 83% of the national average).  Thus, they have to make up the difference by accepting more higher paying, out-of-state students.

Last week, Virginia’s Representative Bob Good joined four other members of Congress’ most radical right to introduce a bill to make all federal employees – right down to your mail carrier –  “at will” employees.  What does “at will” mean?  The bill says that they can be fired for “good cause, bad cause, or no cause at all”! (read the actual bill here)

 Why would Good and his friends want to do this?  Because they want absolute loyalty from federal employees.  Not loyalty to the American people who pay their salaries – but to the politicians and the political party in power. 

 What would it mean to be fired for “no cause at all”?  Just that.  Perhaps Bob Good, or a fellow politician, is angry that you haven’t contributed to his political campaign.  You’re fired.  Perhaps you won’t give his mail priority over other people’s.  You’re fired.  Perhaps he just has a friend he wants to give your job to.  You’re fired.  Or perhaps you have a job that gives you access to confidential, personal information and you won’t give it to him.  (Never mind that that would be illegal).  You’re fired.

So who wins from turning our mail carriers and other federal workers into political pawns?   Politicians like Bob Good of course.  Of course, as a Congressman, he could not directly hire and fire federal employees.  But in return for his support and votes, he and other politicians sure could demand a lot of influence over who gets a federal job in his district.  And what they have to do in order to keep that job. 

If you compare what Republicans are saying about Biden and the Democrats being to blame for inflation and size it up against the facts, you can understandably wonder whether Republicans can be trusted to run the economy. 

Their policies and actions over decades have led to a structural problem of excessive corporate power that companies are exploiting in this time of economic stress.  As one big example, Republicans have a long history of opposition to government oversight of companies gobbling up their competitors. This has led to one industry segment after another being so controlled by a few companies that they can pretty much dictate prices with impunity. 

Eighty-five percent of beef supply is controlled by just four companies, who have dramatically raised their prices to consumers, and their profits, while small farmers have seen virtually no increase in the price they get for the cattle. Only three companies control the entire US insulin market. It is no surprise that Americans pay 10 times more for that much-needed drug than folks living in all other economically developed countries. The same story is being played out in the oil industry where, again, big oil is seeing all-time record profits. And the list goes on. 

Republicans have argued that the government should not regulate acquisitions because they improved efficiency, which translated into lower consumer prices.  Would be nice if it were true – but in fact in most cases prices go up for consumers following acquisitions. But that has not stopped Republicans from preaching that government regulations get in the way of business.  Sure does – for large corporations that can use their financial clout, but not for small businesses and folks living off a paycheck, who get hurt. 

Interviewed by Casey Eitner

Tell us a little about the Food Pantry? How did it start? Where is it heading?

It was started about 12 years ago – the initial impetus came from Hal Hunter, who is behind just about every initiative to help the poor and disadvantaged in the county.  I started to help out and was asked by Mimi Forbes, who has been the manager since the start, to get on the board about 18 months later, driven by a desire to give back in an area where there was a huge need. My family has had its roots here since the 1920’s so it was natural for me to help the community.  The operation started in the Town of Washington in a space that immediately became too small for what we were doing.  As soon as we moved to our current location in Sperryville, we knew it would not be ideal – because it was also too small and because it was on the edge of the community we were serving. Most of our recipients of what we provide, what we call our shoppers, are from Amissville and areas closer to Little Washington.

What’s next to address that?

We looked closely at land off 211 closer to Washington that Jimmy Berg offered to sell us, but ran into cost estimates that were too prohibitive to build there from scratch. However, thanks to an offer from Chuck Acre for us to move into the Rush River Commons project across from the new Post Office, we are now very close to working out the details to move to what promised to be a very suitable location. So the future looks bright for us.

While we are on the subject of Rush River, what is your thought about the fuss about the boundary adjustment and the stumbling block about “affordable housing”?

The need for affordable housing in this county is quite germane.  When I talk to affluent people in this county some seem to have a blind eye to the poverty. They are just not aware of the people that need our services as they struggle just to make ends meet and feed themselves and their families. Our county is in the top 10% nationally of counties with high income inequality, so some of the recipients of our services may not be obvious to how the county looks overall.  And it’s not just the very poor, lots of folks who are from here and work here cannot afford to live here. 

How many folks use your services?

We have consistently in recent years served over 200 families through the course of the year representing about 700 people. That’s 10% of the population. When I say “through the course of the year” I mean that some of our recipients stop coming to us when they find a job and can afford to buy their own food, but then they may hit hard times and need us again. So it averages to over 700 people each year that need us.  Also, we had started a backpack program to provide food on Fridays for the weekend to children in the elementary school and the Child Care Learning Program from pre-K to third grade, and subsequently expanded it to seventh grade.  Before the pandemic we were doing that for some 160-170 kids a week.

The Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe vs Wade is a gamechanger for Virginians – but not in the way that most people are thinking.  Before last week, abortion rights were largely argued in courts of law. The Court’s decision has turned it into a political question, decided in legislatures.  And in Virginia, where our legislature is so closely divided between the two parties, that means that success will go to those who play the political game best.

 Governor Youngkin clearly understands this new reality.  Although he admits that his long-term goal is to end all abortions, he knows that he needs to change just one Democratic vote in the Virginia senate to more severely restrict abortion access. It is therefore no surprise that his brand-new proposal looks “moderate”.  It would ban abortions only after 15 weeks.

 The truth, however, is that even this proposal will seriously harm Virginian women and their families – and rural women in particular.  Why?

First, Youngkin makes no exception for the health of the mother.  Whereas the current Virginia law states that  exceptions can be made for the “health” of the mother, the Governor proposes only an exception for the “life” of the mother. That’s a big deal! Imagine, for example, a woman who may face serious and permanent disability from carrying a fetus to term. Under current law, she can receive an abortion – but not in Youngkin’s world.

 Second, the proposal also makes no exception if the fetus is not viable.  Imagine then the terrible situation of the woman who knows that her fetus cannot survive birth, but who would nevertheless be forced to carry it to term, further risking her own life and health.  

 Third, the proposal would put our medical personnel in danger of prosecution just for doing their jobs.  What if, under Youngkin’s proposal, a doctor determines the woman’s life is in danger - but an overzealous prosecutor disagrees?  Doctors could be hauled into court, maybe even sent to jail, just for doing their job.  One result could be that rural areas would have an even harder time attracting doctors.

Governor Youngkin’s abortion plan consists only of restricting women’s access to abortion services.  This purely punitive approach to women’s reproductive health needs is flat-out wrong.  The decision to have a child is an extremely complicated one, involving questions of health, affordability and very personal needs.  Women should not have politicians telling them what they can and cannot do.  They need our support.

 Therefore, Virginians should insist that our elected representatives come up with benefits that average women really need, including: 

 --first, since many families often face the cruel economic choice that they cannot afford to adequately care for another child, why not adopt new state measures to expand child care and income support for families who need it?  

 --second, offer reproductive health services accessible in every county of the state, with no restrictions on insurance or Medicaid coverage for any kind of reproductive care. Reproductive care shouldn’t be only for those who can afford it. Every Virginia woman who needs should get the timely and professional medical care she needs to make the right (for her) decision.

 --third, any later-term abortion ban should include exceptions based on the health (not the life) of the mother and the fetus – with that decision to be solely that of the mother in consultation with her medical provider.  Such intensely personal choices have no business being taken over by politicians.

 --finally, why not require paternity testing and a requirement that the father help with child support? Because, if there is one goal that should win bipartisan consensus, it should be to providg a decent standard of living for our children, and that is as much the responsibility of the father as the mother.

Having the legal right to seek an abortion doesn’t mean much to a woman and her family who cannot effectively access those services. For many Virginia women, those barriers are very high indeed. In fact, 4 out of 5 Virginia women reside in counties without a single abortion provider! For rural women in the south and west of Virginia, in particular, a clinic may be more than 3 hours away – a distance that makes managing the many other logistics of in-clinic abortions nearly impossible.

Cost is also a major obstacle to Virginia women. The combination of distance, time off, cost and insurance is more than enough to prevent poor and rural women from receiving the in-clinic care that they need (and indeed many of these clinics also provide much needed family planning services too). Many insurance policies do not cover in-clinic abortions, which can be as much as $750. In fact, Virginian public employees are only covered when the woman’s life is endangered or in cases of rape, incest, or fetal impairment, making it financially inaccessible for many.

Fortunately, alternatives to in-clinic abortions are becoming more common and accessible. Medical abortions, otherwise known as abortion pills, are available up to 11 weeks of pregnancy and can be supervised by an abortion provider via telehealth appointment (assuming you have internet access and can afford the pills).

New Rural Virginia member and Rappahannock resident Larry Wohlers spent three years in Moscow in the course of a 37-year career in the State Department.  In this interview, we asked him to imagine how America’s response to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine might have changed if Donald Trump had still been president.

 New Rural VA:  If Trump were still president, how would his policy towards Putin’s invasion of Ukraine have differed from Biden’s?

 LW:  I think Trump himself would agree that his approach would have been radically different. In fact, his public statements suggest that he would have done the opposite of Biden – he would have refused to send arms and ammunition to the Ukrainians and would not have rallied the NATO alliance to oppose the invasion and impose sanctions on Russia.

 Why?  First, because he really likes and admires Putin, even regularly calling him a genius. We rarely hear Trump criticizing Putin’s autocratic tendencies – the poisoning of opposition figures, for example, or the extreme brutality of the Russian military.  Second, Trump bears a personal grudge against Ukrainian President Zelensky for refusing to support Trump’s attack on Biden prior to the 2020 election.  Last, Trump made no secret of his dislike of European leaders and his disdain for NATO.    

 For all these reasons, it seems likely that Trump would not only have refused to support Ukraine but would have publicly defended Putin’s “right” to take the country over.

Blaming President Biden for increased as prices has become a national obsession of Republican politicians and their media channels. But profiteering by the oil companies, and many years of subsidies and support of the industry by Republican politicians, is where the blame lays. So does a dramatic post-pandemic imbalance between supply and demand – which is happening all over the world and not just in America.

Big oil disinvested in production when prices were so low during the global covid pandemic that they had to sell it at a loss. Production was cut by about 10% globally. Why have they been slow to increase production to keep up with the bounce back in worldwide demand? Because they are able to get much bigger profits on the same amount of oil they do sell as prices have skyrocketed. It does not help that the war on Ukraine by Putin, whom the radical right supported and praised, has reduced supply, further increasing prices.

The top five oil companies reported 300% more in profits in the first quarter of 2022 than last year. One doubled its earnings from a year ago. Another notched its strongest quarterly profit ever, and a third posted its best earnings quarter in nearly a decade. Their first-quarter profits were almost 28% of the price Americans pay for gas.

by Mary-Sherman Willis

Anthony Flaccavento has been farming in Southwest Virginia near Abingdon for the past 30 years, setting up the first organic CSA in the region, then expanding it into a farmer’s co-op and “food hub,” and then in 2000, co-founding the Abingdon Farmer’s Market, one of the largest and best in the state.

All that organizing coincided with a day job as a progressive rural development consultant in this mountainous tobacco and coal country bordering Tennessee. He ran twice as a Democrat for Congress in his 9thCongressional District, the poorest and most Republican district in Virginia. Founder of Appalachian Sustainable Development, and later, the Rural-Urban Bridge Initiative (RUBI), he shapes progressive populist programs to rebuild rural economies “from the bottom up.” To do that, he’s become expert in navigating the deep divide between urban liberals and rural conservatives.

With this year’s mid-term elections in mind, I asked him to explain what Democrats don’t understand about rural communities. And what Republicans do.

Rural Democrats tend to be “transplants from a good-sized town or a big city,” he says. “Even those who’ve been in Washington County or Culpeper for 15-20 years are still mystified—they’re flummoxed, they’re frustrated and a little bit daunted” by the antagonism they feel lately from their Republican neighbors.

That anger is fueled by both failing rural economies and the failure of either party to supply a remedy. Republicans, who “jumped in and captured racially motivated white people in the 1960s as Democrats became the more inclusive party, provide nearly nothing of substance to rural communities,” Flaccavento said, “but are so damn good at recognizing people’s anger, and then fanning it and channeling it.