As the Gazette reported on Wednesday, the WV Department of Highways is pushing a bill to study the feasibility of replacing or supplementing the motor fuel tax with a vehicle miles traveled (VMT) tax to help address the declining State Road Fund revenue which is partly due to more fuel efficient vehicles. The VMT tax…
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Budget Beat for March 29, 2013 At the Capitol Two issues which the WVCBP has researched and provided analyses on in recent months are receiving some legislative attention as the session winds down. Worksharing (HB 2952) passed the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday during one of the committee's marathon late-session meetings. It awaits action in…
This week, Governor Justice held a press conference to announce much stronger than anticipated general revenue fund collections for the first two months of Fiscal Year 2019 - which began July 1, 2018. Altogether, revenues are $65.8 million or 11 percent above the revenue estimates. Approximately 92 percent of the current two-month surplus is due to sales ($16.1m), personal income ($14.3m), and severance taxes…
350,000 low-income people in West Virginia will see their food assistance cut when a temporary boost to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) expires November 1, new data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) show. SNAP benefits will average only about $1.40 per person per meal after the cut.…
Charleston Daily Mail - A recent column by Hoppy Kercheval wrongly states that the revolution in shale development was the product of the “free market.” Nothing could be further from the truth. ReadFederal investments and involvement in the development of shale extraction technologies span three decades.In fact, the first successful multi-fracture horizontal drilling play was…
In Sunday's Gazette-Mail, John E. Pauley, the executive director of the West Virginia Chapter of the National Association of Insurance and Financial Advisors, wrote an op-ed making several dubious claims about the state of retirement security in West Virginia and about the proposed Voluntary Employee Retirement Accounts (VERA) program that is being supported by AARP. For…
Contact: Anne Singer, 202-299-1066, ext. 27 or Ted Boettner, 304-720-8682, tboettner@wvpolicy.org Read report New 50-State Study Provides Detailed Profiles and Comparisons of Tax Systems and Distribution Like most state tax systems, West Virginia takes a larger share from middle- and low-income families than from wealthy families, according to the fourth edition of "Who Pays? A…
Hospitals serve a vital role in any community, providing life-saving care to the injured and ill while contributing significant dollars and hours to community service. For example, an article in yesterday's Charleston Daily Mail proclaims that the Charleston Area Medical Center (CAMC) "reports $115 million in area benefit" in 2012. These benefits included training classes…
Making ends meet is a struggle for many West Virginians employed in lower-wage jobs. In fact, 23% of workers in West Virginia are employed in low-wage jobs and a quarter of those live in poverty. People working in their communities as daycare workers, restaurant servers, home health aides, administrative assistants, and many other lower-income jobs deserve to be able to…
Shout-Out to Evidence Counts, the WVCBP Blog As a Budget Beat reader, you are familiar with the WVCBP blog, Evidence Counts. We are proud to be one of the top blogs followed by West Virginia Focus as mentioned in its Sept/Oct issue! Our work on broadband access is also cited on page 24. Read the…