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Resist Pressure For Higher Taxes

West Virginia legislators are scheduled to be back in Charleston Thursday, for what Gov. Jim Justice hopes will be a short special session that, if he is successful, will be far from sweet for Mountain State residents and businesses.

Justice has called lawmakers back into session to deal with a budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1. He believes leadership in the state Senate will go along with his proposal, which calls for higher taxes. At last report, the governor’s favored scheme would, if enacted, take about $240 million a year more out of our pockets.

House of Delegates members are another story. There, anti-tax sentiment is strong enough to be referred to as militant.

Good. It may be that a very modest increase in taxes is needed to balance the budget. Even that should be approved only after conservative legislators are satisfied appropriate limits on spending are part of the plan.

But $240 million is not a modest increase. So what is the governor thinking in calling lawmakers into session before he has a budget agreement from the House?

It is likely Justice believes he can pressure the House into going along with him. Unless delegates signal they are ready to do that, expect the governor to pull another public relations stunt. Perhaps he will order once again that the light on the Capitol dome, normally turned on only in times of emergency, be lit again this week.

And he will accuse legislative holdouts of wasting the public’s money by dragging on a special session without agreeing to his budget. Each day lawmakers are in Charleston costs taxpayers about $35,000, the governor may say.

Well, yes it does. But it was Justice, not anti-tax legislators, who called the special session. And as far as the money goes, which is better? A few hundred thousand dollars for a lengthy special session — or $240 million a year in higher taxes, forever?

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