During the next few weeks, state legislators, business people and thoughtful individual West Virginians will take long, hard looks at the budget Gov. Jim Justice has proposed.

As they do, the disarmingly “folksy” manner Justice employed in his State of the State speech will become less useful to him in trying to put one over on Mountain State residents.

Hundreds of pages of financial documents submitted by the governor make one thing clear: He wants legislators to balance the budget on the backs of West Virginia families and job providers.

Between regular jokes at his own expense, Justice in his Wednesday speech told us what he wants us to hear. Hey, he said with aid of a felt-tip marker and a white board, a one-half percent increase in the sales tax, a two-tenths of 1 percent increase in business taxes, a few bucks more for vehicle registrations and 10 cents more for a gallon of gasoline isn’t so bad.

Relax, he told Mountain State residents. This won’t hurt as much as you think.

But it will. The governor is proposing tax and fee increases of $600 million a year. That amounts to more than $1,320 for a family of four in our state.

Just hours after he was elected governor last fall, Justice pledged he would “absolutely not raise taxes.” Previously, his campaign had proclaimed, “We cannot tax our people to death.”

Precisely, governor.