Gov. Glenn Youngkin has made at least 200 budget amendments already, the chair of the Senate Finance and Appropriations Committee told a town hall in Portsmouth Wednesday.
“I received a call from the governor’s office today, and of the 515 amendments in the conference committee report, the governor’s already touched 200 of them today are either technical or line item amendments,” said state Sen. Louise Lucas (D–Portsmouth).
Youngkin can make line item vetoes or amendments on a compromise budget the House and Senate agreed to, known as the conference committee report, by Monday.
Last year, Youngkin made a similarly unprecedented number of budget amendments, in addition to what the Virginia Public Access Project said was a record amount of vetoes. The amendments led to a monthslong standoff where the prospect of a state government shutdown was raised.
This year, since Virginia runs on a two-year budget, a shutdown is not possible. But the state had billions in new money to spend.
The General Assembly’s budget does not include Youngkin’s proposals to cut the car tax and eliminate taxes on tips, instead sending rebates of $200 or $400 to single or joint tax filers. Education and health care also saw some large-dollar proposals from the General Assembly.
After announcing he signed economic development bills on Tuesday, Youngkin didn’t answer whether he would sign off on the rebate proposal — but indicated that changes could be coming.
“The fact that I had included about a billion dollars of tax relief in my introduced budget amendments, and what has come back is about a billion dollars of tax relief from the conference report, I think, is a meeting of the minds on the fact that we need tax relief,” Youngkin said. “And then we’ll work through the best form of that.”
Speaker of the House Don Scott also touted the tax rebate plan at the town hall in Portsmouth.
“I’m proud that we were able to put some money back in their pockets. We’re doing it again this year. You get another rebate. You get a check this year, in October,” said Scott.
While the governor can propose an amendment to shift tax relief to cuts, if the Democratic majority votes in unison their proposal will win out, unless Youngkin vetoes the entire budget amendment bill.
Staff for Youngkin and Lucas did not answer a question by press time.
