Charleston Gazette-Mail – Offering a counterpoint to the ongoing meetings of the legislative Joint Committee on Tax Reform, a coalition of education, faith, labor and community-based organizations called on legislators Tuesday to pursue tax changes that they said would benefit all West Virginians. Read
Declaring “you can’t cut your way to prosperity,” Rick Wilson of the American Friends Service Committee said, “We need a tax system that invests in things that work, like education, infrastructure and workforce development.”
Ted Boettner, executive director of the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, noted that in 2008, the Legislature rolled back the corporate net tax and phased out the business franchise tax with the promise that the cuts would generate new economic growth that would offset the $225 million a year of lost tax revenue.
Boettner said the new jobs and businesses have not materialized, noting, “We currently have the highest unemployment rate in the country at 7.5 percent… Our roads are falling apart, and we are not making investments in other critical infrastructure like broadband.”
