Opinion

Budget discipline overdue

The Weirton Daily Times editorial

In some politicians’ minds, the essence of a good government budget is that it contains goodies for just about everyone. Work up the courage to take some of them out — off taxpayers’ backs — and you can be in big trouble at election time.

Republican leaders in the West Virginia Legislature have released a proposal for a balanced budget next year. It rejects nearly all of Gov. Jim Justice’s recommended $450 million in tax increases. It substitutes fiscal discipline.

In other words, it restrains spending so that the $4.055-billion budget is in balance without relying on higher taxes that Mountain State residents will have to pay.

Predictably, lots of people, including some Republican legislators, don’t like the plan.

Here in our area, suggestions that $15 million in subsidies to the greyhound racing industry and another $9 million in support for casinos be dispensed with are not going over well.

Rest assured that once more is known about spending cuts envisioned in the GOP budget, there will be outcries from many other quarters.

Political pressure may spur lawmakers to back away from some of the necessary spending discipline. Fine. If particular line items in the budget are viewed as priorities, they should be maintained.

If so, other ways of keeping spending in check should be found to offset the priority items.

What Republican legislators have done is long overdue. They are reminding state agencies — and each other — that the same mentality that rules West Virginia families and businesses should prevail in Charleston. It is simply that priorities need to be set and followed.

There is a difference, of course. It is that when a Mountain State family finds its income does not permit it to buy everything it would like, it cannot dodge spending discipline by increasing taxes.

See more from The Weirton Daily Times

Comments are closed.

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

And get our latest content in your inbox

Invalid email address