Inside Look

It was intriguing and hard to understand the advertisements sponsored by the Governor’s office promoting the bond sale to address the fledging pension funds. The one in which the Governor was filmed in his office promoting the bond amendment as being about jobs was the most troubling. It is hard to imagine how this could be about jobs yet the jobs card was played much like the race card is played when there is no other means of gaining support through actual facts or evidence.

While the bond amendment did fail, it showed us what lengths the administration was willing to go to in order to prevail on its agenda. First, a prominent citizen spoke out on the issue and financed an educational campaign designed to help fellow citizens understand what they were being asked to support. As the facts began to reach the people, rather than dispute the facts raised, the Governor chose instead to threaten this individual with greater scrutiny of his business practices. Does this imply that the various state agencies having jurisdiction over the businesses in question were not doing there job? I think not, the businesses in question are among the most highly regulated industries in the state and it would be hard to find a single entity that has done more for West Virginia than Massey Coal.

Massey Coal and Don Blankenship have provided thousands of jobs, paid millions in taxes and has earned the right to speak out on any issue it chooses. It is corporate and individual citizens like this that create jobs and pay the taxes necessary for state government to function, not state government. Targeting or threatening a citizen such as that which occurred should never be tolerated and should give us an inside view of the thought process that must be in play here. Do we really want government officials who resort to such tactics in order to control their agenda?

To claim the bond amendment was about jobs is disingenuous at best. Now we have to question everything we are told because the administration is willing to promote its agenda by fabricating justification and threatening those who oppose its views.

Right To Speak Out In Jeopardy

I hope most West Virginians are as appalled as I was to learn that our Governor threatened one of our citizens with greater scrutiny for speaking out in opposition to the constitutional amendment required to sell the bonds necessary to acquire more debt. Bullying citizens who disagree or who raise important questions about what our government is doing should never be tolerated. It appears the Governor is sending a message loud and clear: Either you agree to do it our way or we will bring the full force and might of state government to bear on your business.

Citizens and businesses are the ones who will pay for any policy created by government, so they should have the right to voice their opinions without threat of reprisal from state officials. Apparently the Manchin administration believes differently. Rather than simply explaining the facts and providing the public with the information necessary for it to make informed decisions at the polls, they would rather take a hard line on anyone who opposes their point of view.

It is a sad day when to defend government policy you have to resort to threats on citizens rather than allowing the constitutional amendment to pass or fail on the merits. If the merits are in question and the government cannot counter the negative facts, then perhaps those in opposition are more correct than anyone previously believed. I hope the citizens have the courage to vote against the constitutional amendment, if for no other reason other than the fact that we do not have enough facts to support it. Only rhetorical opinions exist.

We should insist on better government as we are paying for it.

Debt is Debt

How is it that legislators have been able for so many years to spend money it does not have the constitutional latitude to spend? In fact, to allow an unfunded liability to occur in essence circumvents the constitutional powers afforded law makers to create debt. It seems that if a constitutional amendment is required to acquire debt to pay a debt that had already been acquired, then the first debt should have required the same constitutional amendment in the first instance. Lawmakers have made promises it can keep without changing the constitution. Does this sound like sound, reasonable and prudent judgment?

How are we to be assured that the remedy now being proposed is any better or more prudent than the policies that created this crisis? What steps have been taken to insure this can not happen again? To allow a debt to occur is the same as creating the debt to start with. Before we amend our state constitution to correct a situation that should never have occurred, perhaps we should force lawmakers to identify and resolve the issues that caused the billions of dollars of debt we face today.

It is offensive that the people are being told such things as “this is not new debt; we are just paying debt we already owe”. Well, then how was that debt incurred without a constitutional amendment? Or, this won’t cost taxpayer anything. Then who is paying for it?

Every story is spun to fit the desired goal and nobody is telling the whole truth. The people need to start asking some very tough questions and perhaps consider sending new folks to Charleston to take care of the state’s business.