Charleston Gazette-Mail - The pandemic has shone a bright light on longstanding needs of families in West Virginia and across the country — needs that, when unaddressed, make families less financially secure, slow our economy and widen the gap between the richest in our country and everyone else. Read the full op-ed. The COVID-19 relief…
Economy
WOWK - West Virginia had the sharpest loss of any state in the nation, with a population drop of 3.2%. When Congress allocates federal funding for everything from health care to public transit to highway construction and education, it’s based on population. Because West Virginia lost people, it’s going to lose federal aid. Watch the…
Mountain State Spotlight, WDTV, News Break, Opera News - The first round of 2020 U.S. Census data is in, and as expected, West Virginia has lost more residents and another congressional seat. Read the full article. There are 1,793,716 people living in the Mountain State. There are also an additional 1,329 West Virginians living overseas, such as U.S. military members…
Wheeling Intelligencer, Associated Press - If the human toll is not enough reason for some elected and bureaucratic officials to take seriously the fight against substance abuse in our state, here is one that might come closer to speaking their language: According to the Center on Budget and Policy, treating and addressing substance abuse and…
Charleston Gazette-Mail - I was trying to find a word that sums up the 2021 legislative session, and after much consideration, it came to me: Despicable. Read the full article. Despicable, in that the Legislature committed acts of cruelty for no reason but the sheer pleasure they derived from doing so. They passed a despicable…
West Virginia Public Broadcasting - While any 60-day legislative session focuses on the hundreds of bills introduced and considered, Republican supermajorities this year helped push three proposed constitutional amendments to the ballot for voters to ponder. Read the full article. Come November 2022, West Virginians will have the opportunity to decide whether to amend the…
Mountain State Spotlight, West Virginia Public Broadcasting, Flipboard - Republican Gov. Jim Justice and some state lawmakers predict the elimination of the personal income tax would bring hundreds of thousands of new residents to the state. Read the full article. There’s no guarantee of that, but their decisions regarding the tax, and its effect on…
Associated Press, Times West Virginian, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Star - With West Virginia about to lose another congressional seat because of steady population decline, some Republican lawmakers are convinced a massive income tax cut is the key to reversing the trend. But figuring out how to do that without harming the state’s most vulnerable or…
Last night, on a narrow 18-16 vote, the Senate passed an amended version of HB 3300, making significant changes to the version of the bill that the Senate Finance Committee had introduced just days before. The amended bill was voted on mere hours after being introduced, and was passed without a full fiscal analysis. With…
WOWK - The West Virginia legislature has until Sunday to jointly come to an agreement on whether the state will eliminate its personal income tax. Watch the full segment. Local policy analysts are concerned about what may be in, or left out of a bill with only three days left to debate it. In a…