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propriations Committee, called the entire Gramm-Rudman concept a “Rube Goldberg” contraption and certainly no way to solve the nation’s fiscal problems. Del. Bernard Cohen (D-Alexandria) said, “It mil trigger devastation in the state. There is no way we can pick up all those programs to be cut. In the short run this means chaos. In the long run, the effect is unknown.”
That budget /or the 1986-88 biennium comes to a record shattering $18.5 billion, of which about 18 percent had been expected to come from the federal government.
Paul W. Timmreck, the state’s director of the budget, warns that the loss of the federal funds, as serious as they will be in 1986, will be far worse in 1987, probably reaching the expected $130 million. But even that, he said, would be preferable to a situation in which the president would simply begin to cut programs now exempted. These might include medicaid, food stamps, Aid to Dependent Children and other child nutrition programs. Funds for Medicare, community health centers, veterans and migrants care are now partially protected from automatic reductions.
According to Timmreck, Virginia would suffer most if the federal government turned Medicaid funds into block grants. If that happened then the state would have to pick up all the increases in medical aid to the poor. Under those circumstances, Timmreck said, Virginia could, indeed, be faced with $400 million in federal cuts with from 20 to 50 programs simply dropping out of sight. The president would, in effect, be broadening the base of services subject to reduction in federal funding.
Baliles, to date, has earned high marks for his recognition of the problems facing the commonwealth and for his approach to solving them. How he deals with the challenges posed by Gramm-Rudman, however, will almost certainly be the major test of his administration.
Like a giant iceberg, the legislation sits there, an implacable obstacle to many of his most critical goals as governor.
And unless he can find a way to work around it, many of Baliles’ initiatives, commendable though they may be, can amount to little more than swabbing the decks on the Titanic.
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