’Tis the Christmas season and Gov. Glenn A. Youngkin played Santa Claus on Wednesday when passing out his new Virginia spending plan for the next two years.

Tax cuts for everyone who pays taxes, the Republican millionaire announced as he once again made changes in what people pay to support the government, the centerpiece of his plan.

But he may find there are plenty of people waiting to exchange what he brought for something more to their liking.

Gov. Youngkin said his plan would reduce income tax payments 12%, making Virginia more competitive with North Carolina and other Southern states that have seen even more economic growth and job creation than Virginia.

But our governor is a different kind of Santa.

In his budget message, he said the gift of tax cuts would be accompanied by lumps of coal in the form of increased sales taxes.

In order to justify the cuts and not rip a hole in the state budget, he wants everyone to pay a bit extra to the government when they make purchases – about a penny more on each dollar spent to the state and a penny more to localities.

And he wants to expand the list of items on which the sales tax would be collected, including streaming services like Netflix and downloads of music and other digital downloads.

Just as last year when the governor vainly sought to cut business taxes, he’s already getting pushback and being told he’s being naughty, not nice.

The switch to sales taxes would mean a larger tax on the lowest income individuals. “The sales tax is regressive,” Hampton Sen. Mamie E. Locke, chair of the Senate’s Democratic Caucus, said in calling it a nonstarter.

The Senate Democratic Caucus piled on with a statement describing the governor’s proposal on sales taxes as “a slap in the face of our most vulnerable individuals.”

For us, Gov. Youngkin’s fixation with monkeying with the tax code doesn’t seem to fit with a guy who came into office in 2022 with promises of big changes.

His budget plan does include other gifts, including a $500 million in investment in Virginia’s mental health services. Included is a big present for parents of children who are developmentally disabled. His plan includes enough money to wipe out the waiting list of 3,400 families who are seeking support from Medicaid to provide care for their children.

He also is doling out money to working parents who need quality day care for their pre-school children, but who often can’t afford the cost without a government subsidy. His budget would provide $448 million a year to ensure subsidies continue to flow.

But in other ways, Gov. Youngkin’s spending plan falters.

His gift-giving list includes wage increase proposals for teachers, school staff and local employees on the state payroll, but only far smaller than anticipated.

He also appears to have reconsidered a promise he made in his first speech to the legislature in 2022. That’s when he vowed to end the practice of dumping raw sewage into the James River and “see the cleanup of the Chesapeake Bay to the finish line.”

His gift list includes just $50 million to help Richmond, the largest local government polluter of the James, upgrade its sewer system. That amount is just half the $100 million the city needs each year from the state to meet the 2035 cleanup deadline.

State help, the city has said, is essential if customers are to avoid huge hikes in their water and sewer bills to cover the $1 billion cleanup cost.

Speaking of cleanups, Gov. Youngkin’s budget offers nothing to help localities replace worn-out school buildings. And the public policy group Freedom Virginia pointed to another shortcoming in his plan – a decline in state funding for K-12 public schools.

In Freedom Virginia’view, Santa Youngkin is more interested in passing out tax cuts than in meeting the needs of people who need strong local institutions.

That’s the real problem. If Santa Youngkin’s top priority is tax cuts, then there will be less money for other priorities.

We agree with Freedom Virginia: “We need a state budget where big businesses and the wealthy pay their fair share and hardworking families get the support and tools they deserve and rely on.”

The governor’s spending plan, of course, is just that. A plan. He has handed it off to the House and Senate.

Like Freedom Virginia, we implore our legislators to take a hard look at the governor’s proposed budget.

We further demand that essential adjustments be made that guarantee our state’s correct course when using tax dollars.