Missing the Bigger Story

Here’s a letter I recently sent to The Washington Post:

Editor, Washington Post:

Anita Kumar’s November 29 Virginia Politics blog post “McDonnell recommends eliminating agencies, boards, commissions” incompletely details Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell’s “ongoing effort to reshape and shrink state government.” By deregulating three professions, eliminating two state agencies, and merging 19 others, $2 million could be trimmed from the commonwealth’s budget if the legislature approves the proposal.

She does not mention that Virginia’s budget is set to increase by $1.1 billion in 2012. This new spending outweighs the proposed cuts by a factor of 550. Gov. McDonnell may be modestly reshaping government, but he certainly isn’t shrinking it.

Ryan Young, Washington
The writer is a fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.