By Phil Kabler, Charleston Gazette-Mail
When Jim Justice leaves office sometime next month, he will be the first West Virginian to serve two full terms as governor since Gaston Caperton — who left office nearly 28 years ago.
Justice leaves a decidedly mixed legacy.
For someone who treated the office as a part-time job, he had some significant accomplishments, including a period of substantial roadbuilding, courtesy of an infusion of federal Infrastructure Act funds, and the issuance of $2.8 billion in road bonds.
He also oversaw sizeable cuts in state income tax rates, although the cuts have yet to produce the growth in business investment and population that Justice promised.
Overall, though, Justice either ignored or took bare minimal action on any number of pressing issues facing the state, including foster care; child care; Regional Jails and corrections; and PEIA costs to name a few. On these matters, instead of acting decisively, Justice opted to kick the proverbial can down the road to the next governor and future Legislatures.
Despite insisting he has placed West Virginia on a rocket ship ride, the state continues a decade of ongoing population loss, a decline that follows a decade of small but steady annual growth in population, a trend that ended, ironically, the year that Republicans took control of the Legislature.
