West Virginia MetroNews - The U.S. Department of Agriculture has asked several questions about how West Virginia would manage proposed changes to purchases allowable under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. Read the full article. For example: what about bottles of sweet tea? West Virginia has applied for a federal waiver to remove soda from eligible purchases under…
Tax and Budget
Times West Virginian, Yahoo News - Four months after forming, the voices against West Virginia's national elected leaders are getting louder. Read the full article. "We went from about 25 people in a smaller church basement," Mindy Holcomb, an organizer at West Virginia Citizen Action Group, said. "We now have, I think, close to 1,800…
West Virginia Public Broadcasting - Higher severance tax and sales tax revenues helped offset a slump in personal and corporate income tax revenues in May. Read the full article. Higher natural gas prices and increased demand for coal to produce electricity pushed severance tax revenues to $47.5 million in May, a 44% increase over May 2024. Personal…
Public schools across the Mountain State have been working to overcome challenges to high-quality and equitable public education including declining student enrollment, insufficient funding, and diversion of funding and resources to the Hope Scholarship. With little progress made to address these challenges during the regular legislative session, school districts have been forced to resort to…
Mountain State Spotlight, Times West Virginian - As Congress moves toward cutting crucial funding that helps West Virginians — many of them elderly or disabled or children — get the food they need, state elected officials so far have no plan to reduce the harm. Read the full article. Under a plan passed by the…
West Virginia Watch - Republicans in Congress aren’t satisfied with just slashing Medicaid, so they are now looking at using reconciliation to repeal large swaths of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to pay for tax breaks for billionaires, big corporations and campaign donors. Read the full article. These days, everyone has heard of “Obamacare,” the…
Charleston Gazette-Mail - In West Virginia, we believe in showing up for one another — whether it’s helping a neighbor change a tire, holding a food drive or pitching in to help clean and rebuild after a flood. It’s who we are. But right now in Congress, some of our elected officials are turning their…
59 News - The West Virginia Center for Budget and Policy found in 2023 that West Virginia places children in foster at the highest rate of any state in the country, four times the national average. Read the full article. The study found that while West Virginia had only 0.5% of the national population, 2.2%…
Earlier this month the U.S. House of Representatives passed a major new tax and spending bill that not only represents the largest cuts to Medicaid and SNAP in history, taking away SNAP and Medicaid benefits from millions of recipients including tens of thousands in West Virginia, but also includes tax provisions that would overwhelmingly favor…
West Virginia Watch - As a child, Nikki Forrester dreamed of living in a cabin in the woods surrounded by mountains, trees, water and the outdoor opportunities that came with the natural land. In 2022 — four years after earning her graduate degree and moving to Tucker County from Pittsburgh — Forrester and her partner…