Another General Assembly session has gone by, and once again our elected leaders have missed the opportunity to make Better Choices for Virginia. While no final budget has been agreed to, none of the proposed budgets contained significant new revenues to meet Virginia's growing needs. As a result of that choice, all of the proposed budgets contain severe cuts and underfund the state's key priorities: education, healthcare, public safety, and transportation.

Better Choices for Virginia laid out a legislative agenda that would closed a significant portion of the state's budget shortfall by reforming costly tax loopholes. We made progress on several important fronts, like passage of legislation to close the online sales tax loophole and increase transparency on costly tax loopholes, but there is still a lot of work to be done.

Our leaders chose to spend our tax dollars on tax breaks for people who buy yachts rather than decrease class sizes.

Our leaders chose to spend our tax dollars on tax breaks for big, multi-state corporations rather than supporting our state's police, firefighters, and teachers.

Simply put, our leaders had the opportunity to choose all Virginians, and instead they chose narrow special interests. As a result our teachers, commuters, cops, doctors, seniors, and kids will all suffer.

Better Choices for Virginia will redouble our efforts during the budget negotiations and the coming year to support the people of Virginia. Together we can make Better Choices.