Governor Abigail Spanberger (D) stood before the General Assembly’s Joint Money Committees on August 19 and delivered two messages that cannot both be true. First: Virginia’s revenues grew by $2.1 billion in fiscal year 2026. Second: the Trump administration’s federal policies are “catastrophic” for the Commonwealth.

She wants credit for a surplus that Republican policy built and a grievance about Washington in the same breath. She doesn’t get both.

She Didn’t Build This Surplus. Republicans Did.

The money Spanberger reported didn’t appear because of anything she did in seven months in office. It’s the product of two Republican records she inherited.

Glenn Youngkin (R), the governor who came before her, spent four years turning Virginia’s books into a surplus machine — by his own accounting, $10 billion in surplus revenue and a record $9 billion in tax relief, built on $140 billion in new business investment. And he didn’t sit on it. He sent rebate checks back to the families who earned the money.

At the federal level, the Trump administration’s trade and tax policies pushed revenue to records — $195 billion in tariff revenue in fiscal 2025 alone, a 150% jump over the year before.

Spanberger inherited a growing economy and a full account. Then she stood up and called the people who built it “catastrophic.”

The Only Honest Answer Was “Thank You” — and a Tax Cut

When a Governor is handed a $2.1 billion surplus, there are two appropriate things to say. Thank the taxpayers who overpaid. Then give some of it back.

That is not a talking point. It is what Republicans actually did. Youngkin returned billions. State Senator Mark Peake (R) said it plainly this year: “We need tax cuts, not tax increases.” A $2.1 billion surplus is proof that Virginia families were overcharged by $2.1 billion. The decent response is to return it.

In her remarks to the Money Committees, Spanberger offered no tax cut, no rebate, no plan to give any of it back — only a warning about federal cuts. She took the surplus and kept it.

She reported the surplus. She named no tax cut. She blamed the administration whose policies helped produce it. That’s the record.

The Democrat trifecta that runs Richmond — Spanberger, Lt. Gov. Ghazala Hashmi (D), and Attorney General Jay Jones (D) — will write the next budget on top of your $2.1 billion. Every Fairfax delegate and state senator who helps them spend it is on the ballot November 2027. Watch whether a single one says the words “give it back.”