Charleston Gazette-Mail - Congress could soon take up a dangerous piece of legislation that has the potential to cause immense harm to West Virginia working families and retirees, all in the name of lining the pockets of big banks and Wall Street billionaires. The so-called Financial CHOICE Act would radically roll back the rules put in…
OpEds
Charleston Gazette - The centerpiece of the compromise tax plan currently under debate by the West Virginia Legislature is a major cut to the income tax rates paired with an increase in the sales tax. Since West Virginia’s current income tax is progressive, and based on the ability to pay, collapsing the brackets and reducing the…
Gazette - Unfazed by a looming budget crisis, some lawmakers are pursuing destructive tax proposals that would shift more of the tax load onto working families and small businesses to pay for tax cuts for wealthy and powerful special interests. West Virginia already has an upside down tax system that requires more from low- and middle-income…
Charleston Gazette - Right now, Sen. Joe Manchin is getting a lot of attention from bank lobbyists who are trying to convince him that allowing some of the wealthiest corporations in America to write their own rules is somehow good for us here in one of the poorest states in the union. Read What these lobbyists…
Gazette-Mail - Republican leadership in Congress has promised to move quickly to change the fundamental nature of the Medicaid state-federal program partnership. What could these proposals mean for West Virginia? In 2016, about 30 percent of West Virginians were covered by Medicaid, including children, low-income adults, people with disabilities, low-income seniors and many people in long-term…
Charleston Gazette - What if a company said they were going to invest over a billion dollars a year in West Virginia to create thousands of jobs, improve the health of our workforce, and save lives? Most would probably say that we would be foolish to turn down this company’s unprecedented investment in our state. But…
The Beckley Register-Herald - For too long, policymakers in West Virginia have relied on a trickle-down approach to state economic policy that emphasizes putting more money in the hands of the wealthy and large corporations. Instead of pushing money upwards in the hope it will trickle down, policymakers should focus on expanding the middle class —…
Charleston Gazette - For too long, policymakers in West Virginia have relied on a trickle-down approach to state economic policy that emphasizes putting more money in the hands of the wealthy and large corporations. Instead of pushing money upwards in the hope it will trickle down, policymakers should focus on expanding the middle class —…
Charleston Daily-Mail - Tom Crouser’s commentary, “Economic Diversification depends on us” (Oct 17), wrongly attributes the rise of the semiconductor industry to just individual effort, specifically Robert Noyce with Fairchild Semiconductor and Intel. Along with entrepreneurship, the federal government played a central role in the creation of the U.S. semiconductor industry. World War II funding for…
West Virginia Record - Earlier this month, an editorial in The West Virginia Record described attempts to restore consumers’ right to hold criminal corporations accountable in court as nothing more than a money grab for trial lawyers. Read I wonder if that includes Wells Fargo’s recent scandal – secretly opening more than two million fake accounts…