Tax Increase Not Bearable in W.Va.
“I don’t think there is any way in the world you can raise taxes on our people,” Jim Justice, then a candidate for governor of West Virginia, told a newspaper just days before the Nov. 8 election.
Justice won, of course. In just a few weeks he will become our governor. He and state legislators will have to tackle the daunting task of balancing the state budget.
Last week, Justice’s chief of staff, Nick Casey, said this to another newspaper: “I think revenue sources, including taxes, have to be on the table to at least be talked about.” Casey emphasized he was speaking for himself, not necessarily Justice.
But talk of increasing taxes, from both Democrats and Republicans, is being heard in Charleston, almost as if it is being viewed as the default position for balancing the budget.
It is certain West Virginia government is deep in a fiscal hole. Last week, Revenue Secretary Bob Kiss told lawmakers it is expected there will be a $400 million gap between revenue and projected expenditures for next fiscal year. Kiss called that a “structural hole” that will persist beyond next year.
What that means is that the shortfall cannot be closed by across-the-board spending cuts, Kiss added.
Perhaps not. But that does not mean Justice and legislators should take the easy way out by enacting a huge tax increase as the sole, or even the primary, means of addressing the problem.
As Justice himself said this fall, “I believe there are significant dollars within our state government that can be swept and really help us.”
Increasing taxes by $400 million a year would dump a massive new burden on the backs of Mountain State residents and businesses, many of them already struggling to keep their heads above water. That amount works out to an average of about $220 a year for every man, woman and child in the state, of $880 for a family of four.
West Virginians simply cannot afford that.
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