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Sequestration cometh…

…and that right soon [1]:

Shortly after the Nov. 6 election, Mr. McDonnell, a Republican, cited the potential of deep federal spending cuts in the absence of a congressional debt-reduction deal in ordering department heads to prepare contingencies for cuts of 4 percent.

The governor could implement all the cuts, some of them, or change any of the recommendations. Or, if revenues remain on track or ahead of appropriations as they were through October, Mr. McDonnell could impose none of the cuts.

…or Governor McDonnell could make all the cuts and put back into VRS what the General Assembly stole temporarily borrowed from localities last year until the economy improved.

Of course, the semi-good news out of this is that the impact of sequestration to Virginia is not viewed to be entirely serious in terms of impact to federal aid.  Of course, federal aid to localities is a different matter… but overall, the impact may not be as serious as once feared.

Now naturally, this will have zero impact on the talk of the RPV Advance — a gas tax hike proposed by Senate Republicans to offset the “transportation crisis” in Virginia.

That’s right folks… $137 million in proposed cuts to government, in contrast to gee-I-wonder-how-much-in-gas-tax-hikes proposed by liberal Republicans?

Great move, Governor.  More to come.