Response to McDonnell
What I see happening from this is with less money going to the education system we will not be able to recruit and keep the best and brightest educators. This will lead to an inferior education experience for most students. There will be an increase in drop out rates. Based on a 2009 Washington Post article VA has a 9.9% drop out rate for high school students. Now lets compound this issue with the fact that our police departments will be hit by cuts. So we will have more individuals without proper education in our population. That can lead to an increase in crime. Let's say it doesn't what jobs can these individuals afford? Some of the statistics I found for Hampton Roads cities with the highest poverty levels is Norfolk (19.4%) and Portsmouth (16.2%). We are also cutting pregnancy prevention funding so one could extrapolate an increased rate of broken families and juvenile child birth.
I will personalize my thoughts. My family was not poor but due to brain cancer in my baby brother's brain medical bills were extreme and my mother could not work as she normally would have. My father was in the Navy. My brother and I both participated in a school lunch program when my mother was able to work and became involved after school to save money on after school programs. We even both served as Student Body President of our respective schools in the same year. We both lettered in over 4 sports each in high school. We also both were in the Gifted and Talented Program. Every single one of these programs are going to be affected by these budget cuts. I wonder if I would truly be who I am today if these cuts had gone into effect when I was in school.
Currently my wife is a state employee. She has not seen a pay raise in three years I believe. Though she has a college degree she makes under 30K a year working for our alma mater. Now she is being required to take furlough days as well. In her office as well as many others there are state employees who have been working for years making much more than they deserve. We have individuals who are not proficient at computer usage, even the basics, yet they have ballooned salaries due to experience. We need to force retirements and cut back on benefits for seniors. We need our next generation to succeed where our last generations failed.
So quickly we state it is because our Governor is a Republican. He should be a Virginian first. Personally I could care less about party affiliation. Vote them all out and start from scratch. My generation could do no worse.