Top politics, government stories to watch for 2012
Sunday - 12/25/2011, 1:48pm ET
By BOB LEWIS
AP Political Writer
http://www.wtop.com/?nid=120&sid=2392927

RICHMOND, Va. - What 2012 won't be is boring. Certainly not in Virginia politics and government.

The list of top stories includes whether money can speak loudly enough to open Virginia to uranium mining despite serious environmental concerns and whether the Republican right rules all of Virginia policymaking.

It includes how Congress copes with the nation's debt and how the inevitable reductions affect Virginia and other states where Washington spends heavily.

But let's start with the main event.

BATTLEGROUND VIRGINIA-2012:

For politics junkies who've experienced Iowa envy and felt pushed to the curb in presidential election years, 2012 is for you.

Barack Obama sorely needs another Virginia victory, and he knows it.

This year will determine whether 2008 _ the first time a Democrat seeking the White House won Virginia since Lyndon Johnson in 1964 _ was a harbinger or a fluke.

Under the radar, Obama's team is already well along in efforts to reassemble the sort of regimented, coordinated campaign in Virginia that undergirded his triumph four years ago.

It has yet to match the high-octane enthusiasm that fueled Obama's previous campaign. Also unlike last time, his top ally and go-to guy, Tim Kaine, is no longer governor but in a tough election of his own that could figure heavily into whether Democrats retain or relinquish their U.S. Senate majority.

When Kaine stepped aside in April as Obama's handpicked Democratic National Committee chairman to run against another former Virginia governor, Republican George Allen, political circles in Washington and in Richmond were giddy.

Already, an anti-Kaine attack ad is out, underwritten by an independent conservative group that doesn't disclose its benefactors. And, in their first debate last month at Associated Press Day at the Capitol in Richmond, Kaine signaled what a bare-knuckled bout this election will be by saying he considers the "macaca" meltdown that cost Allen his Senate seat in 2006 fair game six years later, even though Allen has acknowledged his error and apologized repeatedly.

URANIUM MINING:

A long-awaited independent study by the National Academy of Sciences in December raised serious concerns about whether a massive uranium ore deposit can be safely mined and milled in Pittsylvania County.

Neither the 290-page report nor its authors recommended whether to dig or not to dig. It would have been easier if they had.

It's up to the Virginia General Assembly to weigh the appeal of an economic boom in Southside Virginia _ an area hit hard by declines in the textile, furniture and tobacco industries _ against the prospect of contaminating water supplies for huge areas of Virginia and North Carolina.

The deep-pockets consortium of investors and corporations eager to recover the 119-million-pound deposit has hired Capitol Square's most expensive and influential lobbyists to shepherd legislation to end a 30-year uranium mining ban through a deeply divided House and Senate.

This is one of those issues more likely to create geographic divisions than partisan ones.

ECONOMY AND THE STATE BUDGET:

The $85 billion biennial state budget Gov. Bob McDonnell presented to the General Assembly two weeks ago sets up clear and predictably partisan lines of debate.

Democrats accuse McDonnell of raiding healthcare and public education programs that benefit Virginia's poor to help the wealthy. They point to his elimination of allowances for inflation cost increases for Medicaid recipients at hospitals and nursing homes and cuts to indigent care support at the state's medical school hospitals.

Republicans support their governor by saying he's putting Virginia on sound fiscal footing by reining in runaway health care spending and investing in jobs. They note accurately that costs for the shared federal-state entitlement that helps pay for medical care for the needy, aged, disabled and blind have increased by 80 percent the past 10 years, far in excess of inflation. And now, they add, Medicaid consumes one-fifth of the state's general fund.

McDonnell's budget prescribes the largest cash infusion ever _ $2.2 million _ to the Virginia Retirement System, which manages the pensions of state- and local-government employees. It's an employer's contribution to VRS, whose unfunded liabilities now total nearly $20 billion. McDonnell says he won't pass so frightful a dilemma to a subsequent governor, and it's won him praise from Democrats and Republicans, from Wall Street and from state employees for his stand.

But about half of the total comes from cash-strapped city and county governments, and they view it as another in a series of unfunded state mandates.

The larger budget story, however, could be determined by Congress, not the legislature. Nearly $15 trillion in debt, Washington faces difficult decisions and cuts are inevitable. That's worrisome to states like Virginia that depend heavily on military installations, a large federal workforce and major defense and government contractors. Anything that puts the capital's far-flung Virginia suburbs into economic distress will take a heavy toll on state tax collections.

Sorry the cadre of mental patients that the GOP has assembled for potential POTUS candidates couldn't win in a race against themselves, no one will vote for the many many wackjobs and Romney is a cult member who wears magic underwear, GOP is dead, and thank God, Obama will have a second term to fix the horrendous mess that last GOP crook left. And also sorry, economy will improve and already is on upswing thanks to dems, just in time to defeat greedy, immoral GOP idiots.

GOPsucks, your ideas are intriguing to me and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

BrianSchoeneman Wrote:
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> GOPsucks, your ideas are intriguing to me and I
> wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

+1

" Obama will have a second term to fix the horrendous mess that last GOP crook left."

I don't see where he's fixed the problems. They've just been hidden or postponed. The government and the banks are holding back 2-6 million foreclosures from the housing market. They'll eventually have to go on the market. The huge deficits are still there. Eventually, there'll be another recession and the deficits will blow out again. The banks are still pose a systemic risk to the economy because of their excessive leverage. Nothing has changed, and they're still being coddled by the government and the Fed.

Les Wrote:
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> " Obama will have a second term to fix the
> horrendous mess that last GOP crook left."
>
> I don't see where he's fixed the problems.
> They've just been hidden or postponed. The
> government and the banks are holding back 2-6
> million foreclosures from the housing market.
> They'll eventually have to go on the market. The
> huge deficits are still there. Eventually,
> there'll be another recession and the deficits
> will blow out again. The banks are still pose a
> systemic risk to the economy because of their
> excessive leverage. Nothing has changed, and
> they're still being coddled by the government and
> the Fed.

By fixing the problems he was referring to how unemployment is up, the national debt is way up, people are camping out in cities demanding free stuff getting in the way of people going to work ect. You were right about most of the stuff but your conclusion is wrong. Things have changed for sure, theyve gotten much worse. 2012 slogan: Change its all youll have left

I see people post shit like this and realize that they actually BELIEVE the bullshit that is being pounded into their heads by stupid fucking people.

I want off of this fucking ride...

____________________________________________________________________________________________

I say "fuck" a lot...

Not one candidate that GOP has presented is vaguely sane or electable.

GOP is loser party Wrote:
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> Not one candidate that GOP has presented is
> vaguely sane or electable.


False. You would say that about anyone. If these same candidates were running for your party you would be talking about how great they are

Uranium mining in south Virginia? Probably not as environmentally devastating as it is made out to be.

Blessed are the murderous.