Tax breaks, immigration, education: Youngkin’s priorities for his final year as Virginia governor

Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin launched his priorities in his State of the Commonwealth speech Monday morning.

The speech, and the start of the 2025 Virginia General Assembly, was postponed until after the water crisis in Richmond could be resolved.

“The state of our commonwealth is strong, very strong,” Youngkin said.

He started his speech touting the success of Virginia’s economy over the last three years.

“People are moving to Virginia faster than in a very long time,” Youngkin said. “We’ve seen record job growth, record new business investment, and our state budget is projected to run a large surplus.”

When it comes to tax breaks on his agenda, that includes starting with,”the most hated tax in America, Virginia’s car tax.”

The car tax credit for working class families would provide a permanent, refundable income tax credit.

“We can fund the first three years with $1.1 billion of the state’s projected surplus, and with the average car tax for a typical family of four being $290 it would fully cover their car tax while keeping localities whole,” he said.

Youngkin also addressed immigration, saying he wants all of Virginia on the same page.

“My friends, this should not be controversial,” he said. “Virginia is not a sanctuary state, and if localities have sanctuary city policies and refuse to cooperate with ICE, they should lose state funding full stop.”

He also covered education policies and funding priorities for Virginia schools. He wants to use $50 million to launch opportunity scholarships for low income families catching up with local states that already have it.

“Look again to the states around us, Maryland, North Carolina and even Washington D.C., all have opportunity scholarships,” he said.

He also wants every school to have an all-day no cellphone policy, saying it’s working in those that have adopted it.

“This year, every school division will have cellphone free environments in their classrooms with 100 school divisions bell to bell,” Youngkin said. “In fact, many divisions across the state that attempted half measures found they didn’t work and have now gone bell to bell.”

When it came to marijuana, Youngkin shot down talk of legislation.

“Everyone knows where I stand on establishing a retail marijuana market,” Youngkin said. “Let’s work together on other issues where we can find common ground.”

While that’s not on his agenda, he did say gaming regulation is. He wants to create the Virginia Gaming Commission.

“Let’s focus our efforts this session on building a world class regulatory body, and not on one off bills pushed by special interest groups,” he said.

He also addressed drone sightings in Virginia, saying that he would like to see legislation surrounding privacy and protection of properties.

“Send me a bill to make flying a drone over critical infrastructure a class four felony,” Youngkin said.

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Valerie Bonk

Valerie Bonk started working at WTOP in 2016 and has lived in Howard County, Maryland, her entire life. She's thrilled to be a reporter for WTOP telling stories on air. She works as both a television and radio reporter in the Maryland and D.C. areas. 

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