WASHINGTON (7News) — On Saturday, Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger took office, becoming the commonwealth’s 75th governor. Spanberger says she wants to reduce energy, housing, and healthcare costs. While some are celebrating her efforts to reduce costs, others say that parts of her plan will only increase costs for Virginia families.
“We must address high housing costs, healthcare,” Spanberger said on Saturday.
Spanberger signed an executive order establishing a task force to develop a strategy for reducing health care costs. Another executive order she signed directs her cabinet to propose ideas to her within 90 days to reduce costs for Virginians, and she’s directing state agencies to review regulations and permitting practices that may slow down housing construction.
“We need more homes that Virginians can afford to rent or to buy, and I am confident that we can eliminate or change some unnecessary requirements, that we can streamline approvals, and ultimately we can build more,” said Spanberger.
“Governor Spanberger, a lot of the priorities that she has really reflect a lot of the priorities of Fairfax County,” Fairfax County Supervisor Andres Jimenez told 7News.
Over the past several years, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors has had a tense relationship with the Democratic majority in the General Assembly and Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin. Fairfax County Supervisor Andres Jimenez is working to improve Fairfax County’s relationships in Richmond to tackle things like high housing costs for county residents.
“We need to be a county of yes,” said Jimenez. “We need to be a county that works with common sense. We need to go back to common sense, and that includes working as partners with the General Assembly, the governor, making sure that we’re working with the different departments, making sure that our residents at the end of the day are the ones that are seeing the change that needs to happen.”
As 7News has reported, to afford to buy the average-priced single-family detached house in most areas of Northern Virginia, you would need a household income of more than $300,000.
https://wjla.com/news/local/northern-virginia-homebuyers-need-300k-household-income-to-afford-average-home-real-estate-mortgage-housing-market-interest-rates-politics-hedge-funds
“Imagine if you’re a young person looking for your first home, you just got married, you were living in DC, and now you’re trying to come to Fairfax County,” said Jimenez. “You can’t do it.”
Governor Youngkin says his administration already scrapped burdensome state regulations, and he’s skeptical of Spanberger’s plan to reduce costs. For instance, Spanberger has vowed to rejoin the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative that Youngkin pulled Virginia out of.
“It’s just a tax,” Youngkin told 7News. “It drives up power bills, and it benefits nobody, and it is just a tax. Even Democrat led states are jumping out of it because they recognize that it’s a failed, bad policy.”
After Youngkin presented Spanberger with the key to the executive mansion on Saturday, Spanberger rescinded Youngkin’s law enforcement executive order. With a stroke of a pen, Spanberger ended state law enforcement collaboration with ICE to capture illegal immigrants with criminal records.
“It is a responsibility of federal law enforcement,” said Spanberger. “Virginia, state and local law enforcement officers must be able to focus on their core responsibilities, investigating crime and community policing.”
“Those collaborations are critical, and to not collaborate with the federal government, I believe, would be a mistake, and what we’ve seen is states that have not been collaborating with the federal government have much higher crime,” said Youngkin.
Looking ahead to Spanberger’s first full week in office, she will begin work with the General Assembly, which is currently in session. Last week, lawmakers passed four constitutional amendments, including gerrymandering congressional district lines in Virginia. The redistricting referendum will go to voters sometime this year.
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