Bill Bolling, now serving his second term as lieutenant governor of Virginia, spoke on October 8 at the Virginia Tea Party Patriots Convention in Richmond. He participated in a panel on state government reform with Governor Bob McDonnell and afterwards answered questions from the news media.
The Charlottesville Libertarian Examiner had a one-on-one interview with Lieutenant Governor Bolling as reporters from local and national news outlets dispersed to attend other events in the Greater Richmond Convention Center.
What does ‘pro-business’ mean?
Sparked by a question that had earlier been posed by Eastern Shore radio host Melody Scalley, Bolling clarified the meaning of “pro-business policies,” according to his understanding of the term.
“I think pro-free market policies are pro-business policies,” Bolling said. “I think they’re one and the same.”
He then offered a contrast to federal policies that harm businesses.
“If you look at what’s coming out of Washington today – policies like card check, cap and trade, massive employer mandates, fines and penalties in the federal health care bill, the overreaching regulations of the Environmental Protection Agency, all of the spending, all of the debt, government intrusion in the segments of the economy historically reserved for the private sector – those,” Bolling said, “are anti-business policies.”
The administration of President Barack Obama, Bolling exclaimed, “stands in wonder that the economy is not doing better than it’s doing. Well, it’s not doing better because they continue to pursue anti-business policies.”
‘Stop digging’
Bolling cited an “old saying: If you find yourself in a hole – and our economy is certainly in a hole – the first step in getting out of the hole is to stop digging.”
The Obama administration, he continued, keeps “digging by pursuing these anti-business policies.”
In response, the McDonnell administration in Virginia and other Republican and conservative leaders around the country have said to the White House and Congress:
“Abandon the anti-business policies, acknowledge that the policies that you’ve pursued haven’t worked the way that you intended them to work, and go in a different direction. Start looking at reducing taxes, not raising taxes; cutting regulation, not imposing more regulation; providing tax credits for businesses that invest and hire workers; creating free market, open-market solutions that unleash the entrepreneurial spirit of the private sector.”
Job creation
Bolling, who has been designated Virginia’s top “jobs creation” official by Governor McDonnell, pointed out:
“Business knows how to create jobs. Government just has to get out of the way and let business create jobs, but until government does that, until the federal government stops pursuing anti-business policies and starts pursuing pro-business policies, we’re going to continue to see this economic malaise that we’ve been wandering around in for the past 18-19 months.”
Next: Bolling assesses the McDonnell administration’s plan to privatize Virginia’s state-owned liquor stores.
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