The first meeting of the State Legislature’s Emergency Committee on the Impacts of Workforce and Funding Reductions (quite the mouthful, the clumsy abbreviation being ECFW&FR, clearly needing to be shortened) was held at Arlington’s remarkable Virginia Tech Innovation campus building Tuesday. Based on what we’ve learned so far, the consequences of the brutal slash-and-burn layoffs ordered by the Trump administration will be nightmarish not only for the individuals impacted and their important work, but for this region’s economy.

With by far the highest number of federal workers and dollars as a percentage of the totals nationwide, Northern Virginia’s local jurisdictions will be bearing the brunt of this, notwithstanding the extent to which, or not, the state will be able to step in and help, too.

These factors set the framework for the big election that will be held in Virginia, with the posts of governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general on the statewide ballot and all 100 state delegate positions also up. Not to be overlooked, this is also a year when three slots each on the Falls Church City Council and School Board will also be contested. This gives Virginians the first real, comprehensive shot at letting the world, and anyone else paying attention, know what we think of Trump and what he’s doing to us.

So regardless of anything else, this is a tangible factor that will make a major difference in how all of this is going to play out in terms of the deployment of the state’s impressive budget surplus, for example, in the coming months. A lot of that will be based on the recommendations of the ECFW&FR, the reception of those by the House of Delegates and State Senate, who will likely be convened in a special session this summer to deal with this, and the governor. While both legislative houses have narrow Democratic majorities right now, the governor’s job is currently held by a Republican who has, like most others in his cult, toed the Trump line to date.

But the warnings are now officially posted, including by the representatives of the Northern Virginia Regional Commission who presented their initial findings to the Falls Church City Council Monday (see story, Page One of this edition) before making the same case to the ECFW&FR meeting the next day, where a number of others did likewise.

Because of the further-based collapse of the commercial real estate market, Falls Church’s neighboring jurisdictions of Arlington and Fairfax County are already pressed with fiscal squeezes in their annual budget deliberations this spring. Falls Church is relatively in a far stronger position for now, but as Mayor Letty Hardi said at the F.C. Council work session this Monday, after hearing the presentations from the NVAR and Washington Council of Government representatives, that the Council should be attentive to not only impacts on its own people and government, but of its neighbors, as well. It will take a collective effort going forward.