Entries by Neal Barkus

West Virginia’s High Stakes Stimulus Plan

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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.

Trump’s Advisory Commission on Election Integrity

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One thing that rankles President Donald Trump is that he was not the most popular candidate in the 2016 Presidential election. In fact, he lost the popular vote to Hilary Clinton by approximately 3,000,000 votes, 2.1% of the total votes cast for President. Trump’s explanation is that Clinton’s vote total was the result of widespread voter fraud. In a tweet on November 27, 2016, Trump asserted “In addition to winning the Electoral College in a landslide, I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.” Although he has produced no evidence of fraudulent voting, Trump has continued to make this claim and threatened an investigation. The truth is that voter fraud is exceedingly rare.

West Virginia’s Budget Disgrace

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The soap opera in Charleston appears to be over. After failing to come together on any meaningful changes for increasing revenues or reforming the tax structure, the Legislature adopted a “bare-bones” budget that cuts more deeply than ever into valuable state programs. This was a default to the lowest common denominator and a failure of statesmanship. It defers many important questions for a later Legislature. One Delegate said that the budget was the result of “complete and utter dysfunction.” It wasted everyone’s time and money.

While there is blame to go around, this result was the product of opposing positions taken by members of the same political party. Senate Republicans insisted that there would be cuts to personal income taxes or nothing. House Republicans insisted on broadening the sales tax base and were suspicious of income tax cuts in a deficit environment. Week after week neither side moved. The Democrats were impotent on the sidelines and the Governor lurched from one folksy hyperbole to the next, offering some bone-headed proposals of his own. The whole process was a disgrace.

The Carbon Dividend: An Environmental Proposal to Consider

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In February 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court dealt a blow to the Obama Administration’s climate centerpiece, the Clean Coal Plan. The Court put a hold on federal regulations to implement the Plan that would have curbed carbon-dioxide emissions from power plants. These emission reductions were the main way the U.S. proposed to meet its commitment under the Paris Climate Accord. The legal case attacking the Clean Power Plan was commenced by West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, among others. Then President Trump doubled down by “withdrawing” the U.S. from the Paris Accord, claiming that our commitment forced American workers and taxpayers to absorb the cost “in lost jobs, lower wages, shuttered factories, and vastly diminished economic production.” Now given the hostility of EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt to the mission of that agency, it is hard to be optimistic about our chances for avoiding climate disaster. Where do we go from here?

The West Virginia Budget Crisis

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Remember the large budget deficit that confronted West Virginia lawmakers at the start of the legislative session? One estimate in November 2016 was that in FY 2018 (beginning July 1, 2017) we would generate only $4.055 billion in revenue, roughly $500 million short of anticipated spending. That brought many legislators to Charleston for the general session prepared to strip spending down to a bare minimum and force the state “to live within its means.” Fortunately, those views softened when confronted by political reality.

Now projected FY 2018 revenues are about $40 million better than first predicted due to an improving coal market and a $33 million transfer from general revenues to the Workers Compensation Fund that won’t be made. But the remainder of the budget shortfall hasn’t disappeared. How the shortfall will be closed is the subject of a House and Senate conference committee meeting today. So far, the fiscal and political stress created by the shortfall has caused Governor Justice and quite a few legislators to behave as if any idea – even a demonstrably bad one – is better than nothing.

Rep. Alex Mooney’s Feckless Vote on Healthcare

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On May 4, 2017, the United States House of Representatives voted to pass the American Health Care Act (AHCA) by a narrow margin of 217 to 213, sending the bill to the Senate for deliberation. This Bill would repeal the majority of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) known as Obamacare, a promise made by Donald Trump and numerous Republican legislators during the 2016 campaign.
It is hard to describe in measured tones the destructive impact the AHCA would have on West Virginia, starting with the fact that 175,000 of us would be rendered without health insurance by the stroke of a pen. However, Rep. Alex Mooney (WV 2nd) voted in favor of this law. How could this have happened?

Imagining A Fair Distribution of Wealth and Income

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Many have said that wealth and income inequality is the most serious long-term problem facing our country. So I invite you to play this thought game. Imagine that you are in a position to decide how wealth should be distributed and, further, that you can decide what rules will apply to the distribution of future income. Your objective is to devise the fairest system that will allow our economy to prosper and best ensure the long-term stability of our democracy. What will you do?

Bank Regulation and Bubbles

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The bubbles referred to here aren’t in Champagne or a luxurious bath. They are the rapid inflation of value in an asset class – maybe stocks or single-family homes – to unsustainable levels inevitably followed by rapid, uncontrolled deflation. The unmistakable pop. Those my age have muddled through a number of these bubbles. There was the incredible run-up in value of tech stocks in the 1990s. Then came the sub-prime mortgage lending bubble that popped in 2007.

Bubbles are important to consider these days because a central brake on the conduct of banks in contributing to bubbles, called the Dodd-Frank Act, is under attack by the de-regulators in Congress. Banks and bankers provide a crucial function in our economy. We need them to extend credit, which is the lubricant of the economy, but to do so in a prudent manner. Unfortunately, like most every industry, the banking industry is not self-regulating. Left to govern itself completely, the industry will engage in excessive and risky behavior. This has happened time and again and is just the nature of things.

Do Tax Cuts Lead to Economic Growth?

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Budget season in Charleston and Washington, D.C. has once again presented the spectacle of competing tax philosophies. Conservatives argue for cutting taxes as a way to unleash economic growth and job creation. They assert that high taxes discourage the most creative class from economic activity that will ultimately raise all boats. Liberals and progressives, on the other hand, believe that tax cuts unfairly benefit the rich and eliminate revenues that are required for programs that secure a just society. They further argue that tax cuts do not stimulate economic growth in the long term and point out that some jurisdictions with the highest tax rates in the country and the world also have the highest rates of growth. Who is right?

Rep. Alex Mooney Ignores the Panhandle’s Economic Needs

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Let’s face it. Panhandle voters did themselves no favor when they elected Alex Mooney as West Virginia’s 2nd District Congressman. Characteristics we’d like to see in a Congressman – independence of thought, sensitivity to constituent needs, flexibility in problem solving – appear to be lacking in Rep. Mooney. His actions and statements show him to be one dimensional. Whatever outrage President Trump proposes for the environment with the false promise of putting coal miners back to work is just fine by him.