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National Review: Is McDonnell’s tax proposal paving the way for state Medicaid expansion?

February 22, 2013 | 2:27 pm
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The National Review’s John Fund has a column up today criticizing Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s proposal to replace the gas tax with an increase in the sales tax. In addition to arguing that the legislation that has emerged in the statehouse is unwise tax policy and a “feeding frenzy” by state lawmakers, Fund makes this argument in his column:

The danger now is that Democrats in the state legislature have been so emboldened by the expansion of the tax increase in the budget that some of them are now demanding that Governor McDonnell agree to the Medicaid expansion as the price for ensuring the Democratic votes necessary to pass the budget. Whatever McDonnell does, he shouldn’t compound the tax fiasco he is overseeing with a cave-in on Medicaid that would eventually leave the state budget in worse shape than he found it in four years ago. (Emphasis added.)

McDonnell has been a staunch opponent of Obamacare, so that appears unlikely. Or it did until other Republican governors began flip-flopping on the issue.

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