Here are comments from readers who completed the You Be the Governor challenge online:
"Easiest exercise ever. Cut every item in the budget 50% and cut taxes 25%. Done. I'm one of the Virginians who lost their job last year and I had to cut my budget down to next to nothing and learned to live with it." -- Jeremiah Johnson
"The dang survey only lets you raise the cigarette tax 30 cents -- what a joke. Up the cigarette tax to $2.00 a pack. 3 things would be accomplished: 1) Increase state revenue. 2) Cut back on the smuggling of cigarettes to New York, freeing up those state and federal agents to focus on other crimes. 3) Get people to quit smoking, which will lower our health care costs. It's a no-brainer to me." -- DMiller
"Simple fix? Increase the general sales tax by 1%. That's one penny on the dollar, folks. One penny. . . . Also, those traveling through Virginia and those vacationing here will all pay a share." -- NBell
"Ain't nothing to it! Raised the income tax 1% and raised cigarette tax $0.30 and had a $3 mil surplus. Look at that, my state still has some of the lowest taxes in America!" -- Squier13
"Higher Education HAS to be cut. . . . In economic times like these, Higher Education is less important than K-12, public safety and transportation. College is a privilege, not a necessity." -- Citizen
"Absolutely no tax increases! Should not even be discussed. As for making up the 2 billion . . . calculate the percentage of all the programs so that each program will give up the same percentage of their budget." -- Chris
"This was easier than I thought. Raise income tax by 1% and you've got most of it taken care of. But of course Republicans would rather downgrade education and compromise people's health before ever considering a tax increase." -- Jake67
"Well, not only did I just balance the budget but my budget is running at a surplus. . . . I just made sure that everyone (with scant few exceptions) took a modest hit. My personal salary is down 20% from where it was two years ago, so I feel that if everyone took a modest hit then no one suffers too greatly. I did raise taxes, but then I am willing to put my money where my mouth is." -- Simba2323
"My proposal came out with about a $123 million surplus. Very simple, 7% across the board cuts and no tax increases. I would have lowered taxes . . . but it did not allow such." -- NRAHokie
"Need a half a billion? Raise the cigarette tax from its ridiculous 30 cents a pack to $1 a pack, which is still 34 cents BELOW the national average." -- WalkOn
"Higher ed is out of control. . . . Virginia's large enough to justify three or four public universities, but sixteen is ridiculous!" -- J-Reb
"The Governor, along with each legislator, should be forced to go through this exercise AND let the RT-D publish the results." -- Cowgirl
"Can you imagine what would happen if all of the budget items were on this interactive tool? I guess we would all be getting a refund, huh?" -- Glen Allen
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