Charleston Gazette-Mail - Recently, the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy released “Saving Lives and Saving Money: The Case for Harm Reduction in Kanawha County.” Read the full op-ed. As its author, I uncovered available data on the fatality and nonfatality costs associated with the drug epidemic in Kanawha County. I don’t need to…
WVCBP in the News
Mountain State Spotlight, Beckley Register-Herald - Jeff McKay, like many business owners in West Virginia, has had a tough time dealing with this pandemic. Read the full article. “I’m probably being too conservative by saying that,” said the owner of Huntington’s Summit Beer Station. Fortunately, with the vaccine rate improving, McKay says things are looking up…
West Virginia MetroNews - A House bill to cut the personal income tax by at least $150 million a year until it’s eliminated is on the edge of passage, while Gov. Jim Justice continues to sell a different plan to state and national audiences. Read the full article. House Bill 3300, anticipated to eliminate the income tax…
Charleston Gazette-Mail - A House of Delegates plan to phase out the state’s personal income tax, the state’s largest source of general revenue at about $2.1 billion a year, will be on passage stage in the House Friday. Read the full article. A counterpoint to Gov. Jim Justice’s proposal to initially cut income tax rates…
Hep Mag, POZ - West Virginia will receive $2.4 million in federal funding to help the state prevent and treat HIV, The Associated Press reports. The money arrives as an HIV outbreak among injection drug users shone a national spotlight on the state’s opioid epidemic and sparked debates about syringe exchanges and the economic burdens that result…
The New Republic - “If we hit our CO2 targets and every one of us are living in abject poverty, is that really how you really want to live?” Greg Kozera is making his pro-fracking case to me. Later in our phone call, he’ll argue that renewable energy depends on child labor in Congolese cobalt…
Mountain State Spotlight, Beckley Register-Herald - Six weeks after Gov. Jim Justice began his daily pandemic press briefings, Marion County resident Romelia Hodges was frustrated. Read the full article. It was a month to-the-day after West Virginia had lost its first resident to the virus: 88-year-old Viola York Horton, a Black woman from Fairmont who loved to…
West Virginia MetroNews - If one income tax proposal wasn’t enough to figure out, now West Virginians have two. Read the full article. Gov. Jim Justice introduced a 60 percent cut in the personal income tax a few weeks ago, offsetting the reduction by increasing and expanding sales taxes. The House Finance Committee this week…
The Dominion Post, Yahoo News - Wednesday was National Equal Pay Day and a group of legislators and other equal pay advocates held a virtual meeting to promote four bills aimed at ensuring fair pay for women and minorities in West Virginia. Read the full article. Three of the bills are called the Katherine Johnson…
West Virginia Public Broadcasting - West Virginia consistently has one of the worst rates of drug overdose deaths in the nation, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data show that toll has only been increasing in recent years. The West Virginia Center for Budget and Policy released a report on the economic toll of drug-related deaths and…