Over at Coal Tattoo, Ken Ward has a must read piece on why state politicians and the media avoid having a balanced discussion regarding the impact of the coal industry. One of the central reasons why our state is unable to have a rational discussion is the propaganda and inflammatory rhetoric coming from the coal…
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Over at Coal Tattoo, Ken Ward has a must read piece on why state politicians and the media avoid having a balanced discussion regarding the impact of the coal industry. One of the central reasons why our state is unable to have a rational discussion is the propaganda and inflammatory rhetoric coming from the coal…
Source: www.wvminesafety.org/historicprod.htmand http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/stb0702.xls
The specter of job killing property taxes in West Virginia reared its head again this week, with the cry for tax reform coming this time from outgoing Bayer CEO Greg Babe, as he presented to Charleston Area Alliance's 2012 Annual Celebration, reported by the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail rehashed Mr. Babe's argument, debunked once before here, in an editorial this morning.…
As Sean pointed out in a recent Charleston Gazette commentary, the decline in corporate net income tax and business franchise tax collections is threatening programs such as Medicaid. With this in mind, let's take a historical look at the growth these two taxes. As the chart below shows, revenue from the CNIT/BFT is expected to…
There has a been a lot of chatter about the shrinkage in the U.S. labor force. Brad Delong takes us to two fed studies and Rorty Bomb provides the analysis. This graph from Ezra Klein shows the long-term and accelerated decline in labor force participation: As the graph points out, the labor force participation rate…
George Hohmann does a great job breaking down the Gestamp deal in his Sunday column. (see here and here for background info). Hohmann makes the following observations: * It can be argued that without incentives, Gestamp would not be coming to South Charleston and the stamping plant would remain idle. * The $25 million in loans…
On Wednesday, the Daily Mail reported on the tax incentives offered to Gestamp, the auto parts company that is re-opening the stamping plant in South Charleston. Recently, we looked at the B&O tax incentive, but now with this memo of the agreement between the state and Gestamp, we can take a closer look. The highlights…
A new report by our friends at Demos finds that "state disinvestment in public higher education over the past two decades has shifted costs to students and their families." As readers may know, this is something we've looked at before (see here and here). From 1991 to 2011, total state support for higher ed has dropped from…
Today the Governor officially ordered Workforce WV to begin drug testing those enrolled in job training programs (see below press release). What was not mentioned was that these programs are completely funded by federal dollars and that they mostly go to the "disadvantaged and at-risk youth, adults, and dislocated workers." However, the big question is…