MORGANTOWN — That twinge you’re feeling in your wallet isn’t coincidental.
Today, April 17, is Tax Day 2018.
And on April 16, a group of people gathered at the Morgantown Public Library with a message from the Fiscal Front.
West Virginians, they said, better be ready down the road to render unto Caesar like never before.
That message came by way of a panel put together by Mountaineers for Progress, the local advocacy group.
Said panel included Kelly Allen, who works as policy outreach coordinator with the nonprofit West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, which is based in Charleston.
She was joined by Del. Rodney Pyles, of West Virginia’s 51st House of Delegates, and Danielle Walker, who is seeking a seat in the 51st House.
Morgantown Deputy Mayor Mark Brazaitis rounded out the panel.
The panel was organized in part by Mountaineers for Progress member Ace Parsi, who said it was in response to President Trump’s coming tax reforms. Parsi and his group say the reforms will hurt West Virginians and working people everywhere — even as the White House and GOP lawmakers insist they won’t.
President Trump’s assertions that the Mountain State is already benefiting from such measures, Parsi said, is akin to wearing rose-colored glasses with an out-of-date prescription.
Trump, meanwhile, went off his prepared remarks and said very little about the projected benefits to West Virginians under his reforms in a visit to the state earlier this month.
Budget-watchers and others have already cast the state as last in the country as far as any economic gains that may be garnered under the reforms.
“There is an enormous gulf between the political rhetoric and the reality of living in West Virginia,” Parsi said.
He was seconded by Allen. Under the Trump plan, she said, the bulk of the tax breaks would go to America’s wealthiest citizens. The top 1 percent in West Virginia, she said, includes the state’s 800 millionaires, who will enjoy a $25,070 benefit. In contrast, Allen said, minimum wage workers employed full-time in the Mountain State make on average $18,200.
“That $25,000 is more than most working people are bringing home in a year,” she said.
“Working families seem to be an afterthought.” And, she worried, continuing collateral damage.
With an already overburdened working class, she said, the country may eventually not be able to afford Medicaid.
Same for the Children’s Health Insurance Program and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program — or, CHIP and SNAP, as they are commonly known.
Other things could also go away altogether or at least be drastically whittled down, Brazaitis said. Such as libraries.
Why, he mused, give a $25,000 break to a thumbnail segment of the demographic that doesn’t need it? “Invest in community,” he said. “Not aristocracy.”
