Late last week, the governor vetoed several pieces of legislation. Meanwhile, for the first time in several years, he did not issue any budget vetoes. As Sean and I pointed out here, the governor in West Virginia has extraordinary power compared to other states. In fact, the people of the state grant West Virginia's governor…
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It's become a part-time hobby of mine to debunk the various "business climate" indexes, showing that they have little to do with actual economic health and performance (see here, here, here, here, here, here and here). These indexes typically operate in an evidence free zone, invariably tell West Virginia that we need to cut taxes,…
On April 17, 2013, the West Virginia legislature passed the Fiscal Year 2014 budget. Only minor changes were made to Governor Tomblin’s $11.3 billion proposal, which was introduced at the start of the legislative session, with the final budget only $2.0 million smaller than the governor’s proposal, a reduction of 0.02 percent. The FY 2014…
As we stated last month, West Virginia, like most states, is finding it increasingly difficult to pay for construction of its road and bridges because its gas tax can't keep up with the growth of fuel-efficient vehicles and the increasing number of miles driven on state roads. And while a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax…
Yesterday, Sean showed that ranking well on the libertarian 50 State "Freedom" index doesn't mean your state performs better economically nor does it have any relation to low poverty or higher wages. While Sean looked at the numbers, I would like to talk about the qualitative side of the equation. What does the Mercatus Center…
Earlier this month, the Mercatus Center at George Mason University released the 3rd edition of the Freedom in the 50 States rankings, which measures fiscal, regulatory, and personal "freedom." The study shares some similarities with the previously discussed Economic Freedom Index, both in how it defines freedom, and its relationship with real world economic measures. Freedom…
Taxes are how we pay for the things we do together for our communities, our families, and our economy. Working together through government allows us to accomplish things that are vital to us in West Virginia and that we cannot do alone. Our roads allow us to get to work each day and they allow…
Yesterday, the Senate Energy Committee passed out HB 3072, which gives West Virginia coal companies a severance tax credit of $3 per ton for coal that is sold to power plants in the state that is an excess of what was sold in 2012. As we noted in an earlier post, the tax credit could…
Last week, Governor Tomblin sent a letter to the House and Senate leadership requesting an adjustment to the FY 2014 budget, which he previously submitted to the legislature at the beginning of the session. Governor Tomblin restores some of the 7.5% budget cuts that were included in the original budget and includes new funding for…
While there has been lots of shouting about the state losing coal jobs, as a whole, the state's natural resource extraction employment picture looks very healthy. All together, employment in the natural gas and coal industry reached almost 37,000 in the third quarter of 2012 - its highest point over the last ten years. While…