When we last talked about growing income inequality, the CBO had released a report showing that incomes for the richest households in the U.S. have been growing much faster than the incomes of the poor and middle class. Another study, this time from the Congressional Research Service (CRS), has confirmed that income inequality is on the…
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While the state should be doing all that it can to stimulate economic growth and jobs, cutting business taxes is an inefficient, regressive and poor choice for creating broadly shared prosperity. As Sean has pointed out, there are much better ways to accomplish this goal. As AP points out today, the corporate net income tax…
Today, the Washington Post had an insightful op-ed highlighting the large and critical role federal spending played in the boom in shale gas drilling: Many often point to the shale gas revolution as evidence that the private sector, in response to market forces, is better than government bureaucrats at picking technological winners. It's a compelling story, one that…
Today's Daily Mail had an article about a proposed tax incentive designed to lure a potential "ethane cracker" to West Virginia. The proposal would reduced the assessment rate for property taxes from 60% to 5% for the cracker facility. This would dramatically lower the facility's property tax burden, to the tune of about $500 million over the next…
In his column this morning Phil Kabler briefly noted that the result of capping the state's contribution to retiree health insurance was "that the burden was shifted onto current and future retirees." This is something I wrote about last week, so it was nice to see this basic point acknowledged in print. Another point that has…
Last night the Charleston Area Alliance hosted a discussion between Senator Brooks McCabe, PEIA director Ted Cheatham, and yours truly on how to address the state's growing OPEB (other post-employment benefits) liability. As readers may know, we published a detailed report on how the state should handle this problem back in January. I do not…
As many readers may know, we've been pushing the idea that one of the best ways our state could create jobs today would be to issue bonds for much needed investments in infrastructure and schools. This idea is not new. If fact, other states have already implemented this policy as way to boost job creation…
The Washington Post had an interesting article yesterday highlighting that business demand is the number one reason for job layoffs, not regulations. "In 2010, 0.3 percent of the people who lost their jobs in layoffs were let go because of "government regulations/intervention." By comparison, 25 percent were laid off because of a drop in business demand." Economists also do…
Yesterday, WVU's Bureau of Business and Economic Research hosted its annual West Virginia Economic Outlook Conference. Both the Gazette and Daily Mail had good coverage of the event, where economists from WVU and the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond predicted both the U.S. economy and West Virginia's economy would grow over the next few years, but at at fairly…