West Virginia’s High Stakes Stimulus Plan
The West Virginia Legislature has a single required duty when it meets each year — pass a balanced budget. When the regular session began in early 2017, the revenue available for funding state programs had dropped to $4.05B, approximately $500M less than was spent in the previous fiscal year. Against this backdrop, Governor Justice proposed a number of new revenue sources and programs, few of which got any traction.
Being in no mood to raise new revenues, the Legislature was prepared to force the state to “live within its means” by drastically cutting programs and services. But on June 13, at the proverbial last minute, the Governor sent a letter to the Speaker of the House of Delegates with a revised revenue estimate of $4.225B. This higher revenue estimate enabled the Legislature finally to pass a budget without hyper-cuts to state programs. But the estimate was based on wishful thinking and may force the Legislature to confront an even larger deficit next fiscal year.
Careful readers of the Governor’s revised revenue estimate would have noticed a portentous footnote that made his higher estimates dependent upon the passage of two bills related to roads:
These estimates are contingent on revenues and projected economic activity associated with the passage of Engrossed Senate Bill 1003, relating generally to WV Parkways Authority, and Engrossed Senate Bill 1006, increasing funding for State Road Fund, as recommended by the Governor.
So the final budget commits the state to certain spending in FY 2018 that will be “funded” by uncertain, estimated tax revenues from future economic activity. According to the Governor, that increased economic activity will be generated by ramped up roadbuilding and repair, itself dependent upon the public sale of new bonds. The bulk of these new bonds cannot be issued until voters approve the bond issue in a special referendum to be held October 7, 2017.
In fairness, $140M in new revenues for the roadbuilding effort will be secured by the $.035 per gallon increase in the gasoline tax, increasing the motor vehicle privilege tax and a variety of new DMV fees. Plus $400M to $500M in new bonds will be sold by the West Virginia Parkways Authority and financed by increased Turnpike tolls. The roadbuilding from those bonds will be confined to ten southern West Virginia counties contiguous to the Turnpike.
But the large majority of the new bond revenue will depend on public approval in the special referendum. This will be the second largest roadbuilding bond effort in state history and, if successful, will raise about $2.4B. The last such effort was a 1996 road bond amendment for $550M, or about $859M in today’s dollars. One major worry is whether the bond referendum will pass. Between 1973 and 1996, voters defeated road bond referendums three times and no road bond proposal has been before the public in 21 years.
In his public statements about the issue, Governor Justice has been apocalyptic about the possibility of a failed bond referendum, warning “[i]f it fails, this state is history. That’s all there is to it. . . . You will have a complete melt-down if this doesn’t go through.” Even if the referendum does pass, several months will be required to sell the bonds, issue and award contracts and get construction underway. None of the roadbuilding and repair financed by these new bonds can begin until the spring of 2018. On this schedule the state is unlikely to benefit from any increased economic activity until FY 2019.
There are other problems with relying on future economic activity from roadbuilding to fund the budget. Clearly there will not be a one-to-one return on the dollars spent, at least in the short run. A certain segment of the funds generated by the bonds will be consumed in state administration, and another segment in overhead and profit for the roadbuilding companies. Although wages to laborers will increase while the work is underway, there is no guarantee that these laborers will spend the money in West Virginia or be taxed as residents here.
On the other hand, there is an economic multiplier that always increases the benefit of public spending as it gets recycled through the economy. If we are careful, each stage of this spending can yield tax revenue. Furthermore, better roads will have a long term, although hard to measure, positive impact on the ease of commerce and may be part of attracting new business. The best that can be said for the roadbuilding stimulus is that it can pay off if everything goes according to plan or better. Yet how often does this happen?
The Governor should get some credit for pushing these measures through. He will certainly be the goat if, as seems likely, the expected revenues do not materialize in FY 2018 and the Legislature faces a larger deficit next spring.
The benefits from a roadbuilding stimulus plan, even if they occur, will mostly be short term – while the roadbuilding is underway. What we need instead of short term, stopgap measures, is a serious plan to stabilize and grow revenues. The Legislature knows what revenue tools are available – income taxes, sales and gross receipts taxes, excise taxes on certain items, estate taxes, and others. We need the proper mix of these revenue tools so that we take full advantage of good economic times in the coal and gas industry, but also have solid revenue streams when these industries decline. Above all we should avoid the faddish, trickle-down economics of corporate and personal income tax cutting so favored by some conservative Republican legislators.
