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For all Virginians

The Winchester Star: For all Virginians Gillespie gets our nod

For all Virginians Gillespie gets our nod
The Winchester Star
​October 27, 2017


Thus, it came as no surprise that his first proposal coming out of the gate had to do with tax reform — namely a 10 percent cut in Virginia’s income tax. As comfortably as Republicans wear the mantle of tax cutters, this particular initiative caught us — and many other Virginians, we suspect — by surprise…

But, as National Review said in an endorsement editorial, “magic” may eventually surface should Mr. Gillespie win and see his plan enacted.

“Virginia’s top personal-income-tax rate kicks in at $17,000,” NR’s editors wrote, “and Gillespie is proposing to cut income taxes by 10 percent across all of Virginia’s tax brackets. The current governor, Democrat Terry McAuliffe, has presided over a period of falling labor-force participation and relatively weak economic growth. Gillespie’s tax plan would be an economic boost.”

His firmness on other issues — he is for the Mountain Valley and Atlantic Coast pipelines (on which his opponent has waffled endlessly), against the removal of Confederate statuary, and determined to overhaul the state’s mental-health services — has forged a tightening of this race. Most polls now have Mr. Gillespie moving within the margin of error; one, a Monmouth canvass, has him ahead by a point, and more recently a Hampton University survey shows him up by eight. And given that Mr. Northam has intimated that a Democratic takeover of the General Assembly could mean a repeal of the state’s right-to-work law, the contest should tighten even more. Even Terry McAuliffe never expressed a desire to tamper with right-to-work.

Though the race may be close, and getting closer, to us this is by no means a close call. In Ed Gillespie, we have a man — seasoned, conservatively pragmatic, and graced with that sense of duty — who is comfortable in his own skin, even at a time when few others in the political whirl seem to be. On the other hand, Ralph Northam, in the previous decade, twice voted for George W. Bush. Now he suggests repealing the state’s right-to-work law. Go figure.

We prefer not to. We endorse Ed Gillespie.

Read the full piece HERE.