If the folks in Charleston want to take credit for positive reports from ratings agencies such as S&P Global, they’d better be ready to be held accountable for the negatives.

While reminding elected officials they must be ready to make corresponding adjustments if there are negative revenue effects from Medicaid changes, S&P Global Ratings went on to express great concern over the sustained loss of population over the past 75 years. Combine our hemorrhaging of people with the fact that a high percentage of those who DO stay are living below the poverty line, and/or growing older while younger residents flee to raise their families, and the outlook could be grim.

“West Virginia’s demographic profile remains a negative consideration in our credit rating analysis for West Virginia due to consistent and ongoing population declines,” the S&P analyst wrote. “Wealth and income indicators also compare unfavorably with the nation, with per capita personal income below 80% of the U.S. average. Combined with a high age-dependency ratio, we expect the state’s demographics will remain a challenge for economic development.”

Further, the analysts were concerned about our over-reliance on tax revenues from coal, oil and natural gas; and warned against trying to balance our budget with one-time money.

S&P said it might revise its outlook on West Virginia if “the state is unable to maintain structural balance and relies significantly on one-time budgetary solutions should a shortfall unfold. We also could revise the outlook to stable should economic diversification wane or if demographic trends weaken further compared with those of the nation.”

What worries West Virginians worries ratings analysts, too. Our elected officials are doing almost nothing to expand and diversify our economy rather than relying on the way things have always been done. They are doing almost nothing to address our aging, unhealthy, poor and relatively poorly educated demographics while they moan about how they wish SOMEONE would do something about all the young people who feel they must leave to live and raise their families where quality of life is better. They are doing almost nothing to reverse the socio-cultural damage done by extremists who were more concerned about filthily cheap political points than uplifting ALL Mountain State residents.

What we received this week was one report, from one ratings agency. But the assessment by S&P’s analysts was spot on. It is possible for West Virginia to do good things and to move in the right direction.

But we will pay dearly for it if our elected officials continue to decide they’d rather not.