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The House Appropriations Sub-Committee on Technology Oversight and Government Activities released only a few hours ago its first meeting agenda — and the meeting is tomorrow morning! Why is this significant? Bills dealing with budget reform are difficult to get through the General Assembly. Here’s our chance!

These are the two bills: HB 1681, patroned by Republican Delegates Dickie Bell, Ben Cline and Mark Cole, that would put Virginia make Virginia budget writers appropriate on a zero-based principle. Currently, if an agency has a budget of $10 million one budget cycle, it starts off the next budget cycle at $10 million. This makes reducing government difficult. If, however, an agency must prove, via its performance, what budget it deserves, efficiencies and a smaller government can be realized.

The second bill is HB 1869, patroned by Delegate David Toscano, a Charlottesville Democrat. It would provide that the House and Senate Budget conference committee could not include in its budget, which is what both chambers vote on during each session’s final day, items to a non-state agency, not introduced as legislation, nor not included in either chamber’s version of the budget unless the chairmen of the money committees notify, via letter, all 140 members of the legislature and post it on the committees’ Web sites. This is vital! So much of the final budget is a mystery and lawmakers only have a few hours to digest all $70 billion in the document. Last year, this bill was not even heard in committee.

This is no way to run the country’s best managed state. Contact members of the sub-committee! Here is the sub-committee list with links to their contact information.

This is the second in a series about key issues facing this year’s General Assembly. Issue One, Life Defined And Protected, was posted yesterday.

Last General Assembly session, just before Congressional liberals rammed through their government-run health insurance overhaul (see ObamaCare411.com), Virginia responded to the mood of its citizens and passed the Virginia Health Care Freedom Act. Once the federal health insurance changes were signed into law, Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli quickly filed suit in federal court to defend (see video) the constitutional rights of Virginians. 

Legal challenges aside, ObamaCare is scheduled to be fully implemented by 2014. While we hope Virginia’s lawsuit will succeed, no one can, with anything close to certainty, count on the courts to invalidate the law or on Congress to repeal it (see 21StateLawSuit.com). 

We especially are concerned about the provisions of the law that allow for abortion funding. That’s because ObamaCare puts states in charge of their own health insurance exchanges for individuals and small businesses. If enacted today, Virginia could potentially include, in its exchange, plans that cover elective abortion. In fact, Pennsylvania and Maryland already have moved to include such plans (see CNSNews.com). Without intervention by the General Assembly, pro-family citizens opposed to abortion would be mandated to fund this unethical destruction of human life. Virginians may be divided on the issue of abortion, but a vast majority are opposed to publicly funding it with their hard earned tax dollars.

However, there is a clause in the federal health insurance plan that allows states to opt out of abortion funding in their state run exchanges. Such action also fulfills the executive order signed by President Obama that theoretically protects Americans from funding abortion through the health insurance scheme. According to Americans United for Life, a total of 25 states, including Virginia, have either opted out or have plans to introduce legislation with the hope of preventing health insurance companies in the exchange from providing abortion coverage. 

Toward that end, The Family Foundation is supporting legislation introduced this session by Senator Mark Obenshain (R-26, Harrisonburg) and Delegate Ben Cline (R-24, Rockbridge) that would prevent insurance plans in the Virginia exchange from providing abortion coverage. Especially in today’s financial climate, it is unconscionable to mandate Virginians to underwrite a publicly unsupported issue resulting in the destruction of human life.