Republicans propose cuts or eliminations for a number of state taxes, which they say would help attract employers to West Virginia.
If all the tax changes highlighted on Thursday were enacted, though, it would cost the state about $530 million in revenue, at a time when Manchin has already decided to cut about $200 million from his initial budget of $4.3 billion.
That's part of the reason Democrats say the situation isn't as simple as their rivals contend.
House Majority Leader Brent Boggs said the session has been heavily influenced by the worsening prospects for the proposed state budget. Lawmakers have been warned they must cut 2 percent, and then another 2.5 percent or so, this session, he said. On top of that, they still haven't seen an amended spending bill from the governor.
"We're in a situation where we have to devote a lot of our time to working on a budget,'' the Braxton County Democrat said.
Boggs also cited hard-to-avoid increases in such budget areas as prison health care costs.
"It would be difficult to cut taxes, and then try to balance that with the services that people need and require,'' he said. "Things like health care are becoming a real budget-strangling issue.''
It's funny how the Republicans always claim to have a new plan when it's always the same thing over and over and over again. George W. Bush's tax cuts helped run up record deficits even before he drove the national economy into a ditch.
I guess the West Virginia Republicans' needed to distract from the stigma of their mantra of "Unleashed capitalism." But offering nothing new and calling it a new plan? I guess driving the state's budget into a ditch and completely wrecking it to with tax cuts that wouldn't cover the basics of government like roads and prisons would be something new, but haven't Republican plans done enough damage already to the national and global economies?
