U.S News & World Report - The small town of Madison, West Virginia, used to be a tale of the coal miner's dream. High schoolers could collect their diplomas and head straight to the mines to make $70,000 a year with no higher education, as their parents and grandparents had done for years. Read.
WVCBP in the News
Charleston Gazette-Mail - President Donald Trump's proposed budget, officially unveiled Tuesday, is a cold-blooded plan to help the rich and the military, while slashing the safety net for average American families. Read.
Beckley Register-Herald, Bluefield Daily Telegraph - Several state officials on both sides of the political divide spoke out Tuesday against President Donald Trump's budget proposal, arguing the cuts in the proposal could devastate West Virginia. Read.
Ohio Valley Resource, WKNS Radio - The true costs of the deep cuts in President Donald Trump's proposed budget would fall disproportionately on many of the poor and working class people in the Ohio Valley region who helped to elect him, according to lawmakers and policy analysts. Read.
State Journal - Members of the state Senate's Select Committee on Tax Reform have decided to double down on their tax reform plan, completely rewriting a tax and revenue bill previously passed by the House of Delegates. Read.
Public News Service - The West Virginia Legislature is getting closer to securing the revenue the state needs. But Ted Boettner, executive director with the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, says lawmakers aren't there yet. Read.
As the legislative budget impasse moves into its third week, about the best that can be said is that the Senate/governor proposal to use income tax cuts as a way to make other tax increases more palatable to legislators appears to have been put out of its misery. Read.
State Journal, Exponent Telegram - West Virginia's budget impasse continued on Wednesday, May 17, with the West Virginia Senate and House of Delegates advancing disparate legislation but with the House declining to suspend legislative rules to quickly vote on a revenue bill passed by the Senate on Tuesday. Read.
Charleston Gazette-Mail - Republicans generally try to slash the graduated income tax, because upper brackets of the tax fall mostly on the rich. Read.
Associated Press, U.S. News & World Report - A research group that examines how government policies affect low-income Americans says the latest proposal to replace the Affordable Care Act will particularly hurt rural communities including those in West Virginia. Read.