Next round

With the new year just around the corner, we turn at least some of our attention to Richmond, where the General Assembly will meet beginning in January.

In a town-hall meeting with state employees last week, Gov. McDonnell promised the commonwealth’s work staff bonuses of up to 3 percent, about $80 million.

The only catch? State government will have to be pared by $160 million before the bonuses will be awarded next December.

The spin from the governor’s side is that state employees are being asked “to identify ways to make government more efficient, reduce unnecessary spending and increase performance.”

Yeah, right. They are being asked to come up with places to cut. Nothing more, nothing less.

Since the recession began, Virginia has already cut $1.3 billion from education, $238 million from public safety and nearly $1 billion from health care, according to the Commonwealth Institute for Fiscal Analysis.

Our guess is not all of the cuts made government more efficient, reduced wasteful spending or increased performance. Our guess is that they made our schools less competitive, our streets less safe and our citizens less able to safeguard their well being.