- What are your plans to create jobs in your district? Are there any particular industries you would like to bring into your district? What kind of legislation would you create in order to bring in out-of-state companies into the district?
- (1) Any person who thinks that a politician can create jobs needs to go back to school and relearn economics. Jobs are created by the private sector though the growth of existing businesses or entrepreneurs developing new businesses. A proper functioning government provides efficient and affordable public services to support private citizens while keeping taxes low. The most effective way for government to encourage the growth of business is to simplify the laws, enforce those laws and lower the taxes. (2) It would be arrogant indeed for any politician, even one such as myself who actually has a background in economics, to claim that he knows what industries are best and to be encouraged. It is up to the citizens, in their wisdom, to encourage or discourage those industries they so desire. It is incumbent upon the state to treat all businesses fairly, and not to spend one citizen’s tax money to promote his neighbor’s business. (3) In this same vein, it is simply wrong and immoral to bring in out-of-state companies at the expense of current local companies. If you invite a company to your area with promises of tax breaks or other gifts paid by the taxpayer, then your neighbors, Lincoln, Putnam, Mason or Kanawha counties, or Ohio or Kentucky, simply try to promise more. Who pays for these promises but the current taxpaying citizens and businesses? When these tax breaks are ended, and the company follows the next promise, what will you have left? My opponent claims that educating workers will attract business. Which is more likely, that a business will pack up shop and move to the newly educated worker or that the newly skilled graduate will relocate to where he has been offered a job? This is why our state’s greatest export has been our college graduates. Grow business first, then education will follow. Educate first, then the educated will go to find the jobs.
- With less tax revenue expected to come in to the state, what should be done with the state tax system? What are your thoughts on state taxes and do you have any plans to increase/decrease taxes in your represented district?
- We must take advantage of this opportunity to reduce the size of government, reduce and simplify the state’s tax structure, and at the same time create greater transparency in our appropriations. West Virginia needs to do more that try to play catch-up with the rest of the nation. We have the opportunity to reshape how our government functions, to be an example to the rest of the country. Our Legislature needs to stop acting like a committee working for the Governor and begin to act like a Board of Directors. Simplify taxes on the revenue side making them more fair, set the example by being more efficient and tightening the state’s belt on the spending side. Certain wealth taxes should simply be eliminated, such as the personal property tax. It is a simple principle of taxation that you do not tax wealth or wealth transfers, but you only should be able to tax actual economic production. For example, a B&O tax which taxes a percentage of business revenue rather than business profits can easily turn a business from making money to losing money because it taxes gross revenues rather than net revenues. What I propose is not an easy change, but then nothing worthwhile ever is easy.
- With crime, especially drug abuse, becoming a bigger problem in the area, what do you think should be done to cut down on drug activity in the district? Are there any pieces of legislation you would like to create to combat the rising local drug epidemic?
- Let’s not confuse the two issues. First, let me address the drug abuse and addiction problem. There are many aspects of this problem that simply will not be solved at the state or local level but need to be solved on a national scale, but lets examine the simple economics of the problem. Using marijuana as an example, it is considerably easier to grow than tobacco, and you could probably produce a pack of twenty marijuana cigarettes for less than a dollar. This has a street value of roughly $5 per cigarette, or $100 per pack. Exactly how would you propose to eliminate the violence and corruption that comes with an illegal product with a 99% profit margin that people obviously find desirable? Unlike other crimes drug use falls into a category of what is known as victimless crimes, meaning that neither the seller nor the buyer is likely to call the police as neither of them feel they are a victim. Personally, I believe in a Darwinian approach to drug abuse; that is let the addict overdose on it and hopefully eliminate themselves from the gene pool before they procreate. Unfortunately, this seldom happens and the drug addiction leaves devastated families to try to pick up the pieces. It doesn’t merely affect our criminal system, our family court system spends a good deal of time picking up the pieces of past and current drug abuse as well. So we have a convoluted mess of personal tragedy with civil and criminal implications. Which brings us to the second issue, crime in general and our often misdirected attempts to focus on serious crime. I believe New York’s former mayor had it correct with the broken window approach to crime prevention. When you let the little things slide, like broken windows and minor crimes, you end up inviting more and more crimes of an increasing intensity. Enforce the laws regarding theft and destruction of property and you will deter the more serious crimes, and often end up targeting the same criminals before they begin to think they can get away with anything. On a legislative level, many of our criminal laws have not been updated since 1931, and still have on the books fines of up to $100. I have personally had four different police officers tell me that is was not illegal to cut down and steal trees, despite two criminal laws on the subject in the West Virginia Code. (Point of amusement, the legislature in their infinite wisdom to protect flowers on the state highway, with one of these laws turned a felony theft into a misdemeanor regardless of how much the thief stole.) You ask what pieces of legislation I would like to pass; my answer is update and enforce the ones that have already been passed. The legislature can pass whatever they will, but if it is never enforced, it’s not worth the paper on which it’s printed.
- Over the past 10 years the housing stock in several cities has been slowly declining. What could you do, as a legislator, to create/improve housing in the area? Should the problem be solved locally or on the state level?
- Neither, there is no problem . . . there is no spoon. Let’s see, the housing stock has been declining over the last decade. The state’s population has been declining for several decades. What could I do as a legislator to create housing in the area? Why I could completely waste the taxpayers’ money trying to defy the natural market forces that govern these things and are fully beyond the capabilities of mere government, thus creating and encouraging something of a crisis in our financial institutions by encouraging excessive lending by banks such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And at the same time I could boost my own votes and ego by creating jobs in useless agencies to oversee such a boondoggle. Wait, I’m too late, someone already did that. But as a classical economist I choose to simply recognize that this it the market’s way of adjusting to a changing situation through declining housing prices leading to increased opportunity for the poor and underprivileged to invest in real estate.
- What type of health care initiatives are you interested in introducing as a legislator? Do you believe the system is being utilized to its full potential, or can improvements be made? If improvements could be made, what are they?
- Our nation’s health care system has been getting increasingly messed up the more the government continues to interfere and treat health care as being out of the normal bounds of economic reasoning. The politician’s usual answer is to provide more money for this program and that program which typically does more to drive up the cost of medicine rather than make it more available and affordable, but it does hide some of those costs in the patient’s and the patient’s family’s tax bill. If you want to reduce the cost of health care and increase its availability, then the legislature needs to encourage rural health care not through subsidies but through easing restrictions. Encourage the increased independence and use of physician’s assistants, midwives and registered nurses. Decrease the time and expense required to become a doctor, perhaps developing a program where the prospective doctor doesn’t spend four years getting a biology degree before starting four years of medical school and instead goes through a six year medical program. Avoid foolish ideas like trying to re-import drugs from Canada which were only sold to them at a discount as a marginal market from the pharmaceuticals. Some things need done on a national level such as permitting individuals to deduct medical insurance the same as businesses, or don’t allow any deduction for either.
- Marshall University regularly has to compete with other colleges in the state for research funding dollars. Do you believe research and the furtherance of higher education in your district is important? Why? What do you plan to do to bring more funding dollars to MU? What would you do to ensure that MU would have the opportunity to continue its research initiatives?
- Does anyone really believe that somehow the Legislature will suddenly stop spending money on research funding for their state colleges? While private industry research and development has always proven far more productive than academic sponsored research, there will always remain a certain academic benefit in pure research. To the extent that researching and publishing has taken the forefront in academia, our students’ education has been the one to suffer. Any nationalized industry, such as education, must focus on the objectives of their employer, and the employer of our education system is the government, not the children or their parents. Research initiatives at MU will continue along with more funding dollars because this serves the interests of the government, but don’t be so foolish as to pretend that this is to benefit the students or improve education.
- What are the conditions of the roadways in your district? Are there any pieces of legislation you are interested in introducing to improve local roads?
- With regards to the roadways in the fifth district, I’ve seen better and worse. There is always room for improvement, of course, but I think at this time and with our present road conditions this topic is not really a high priority, but I do encourage the reader to reference my response to the next set of questions.
- How do you plan to work with the state's Division of Highways to improve roadways in your district? What road and bridge improvements need to be made?
- This is a prime example of where our state government functions backwards. While we take the time to hire competent industrial engineers, civil engineers and economists in our state’s Division of Highways, we proceed to use funding for particular projects in legislative districts as the brass ring of local politics so that legislators can come home and say see what I’ve done for you, even if the project really wasn’t warranted or worthwhile while leaving other more worthy projects behind. Additionally, we appear to have some problem making sure that the money we spend on our roads actually makes it to the actual road. It occurs to me that I have been driving for over 24 years now, and since I’ve been driving I have yet to see a time when that 50 mile stretch from Huntington to Charleston on I-64 was not under repair. Twenty-four years and you can’t actually finish 50 miles of road? There is a simple solution to both problems. Simplify the administration of highway funds with the Legislature taking a less active and political role with pet projects but instead assuming a more supervisory position. Give a streamlined Division of Highways more authority but make them more accountable to the Legislature through better use of the state Auditor’s office.
- How do you plan to improve recreational activities in the area? Are there any parks, trails or playground projects you would like to focus on? How would these new recreational activities benefit the communities?
- This exemplifies the types of problems and approaches endemic to the system as addressed in the previous question. A legislature that spends its time on playground projects is not doing its job. What has put it in people’s heads that it is the government’s responsibility to provide recreational activities? I mean, I like going up to Beach Fork, or going up to Ritter Park or Harris Riverfront Park, but if the job of being in the government is concerned with trifles such as how to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon, then do we really need government at all. I’ll leave such things to others.
- What areas of interest do you plan on focusing on as a legislator? Have you planned any legislation to be introduced?
- I want to focus on two things: (1) simplifying, correcting and updating particular sections of the State Code; and (2) applying sound reason and economics to every issue. For the first, let me cite a few examples. Did you know that it is not illegal to lie under oath in WV, except in matters of a felony? Did you know that the maximum fine for Assault and Battery has not been adjusted for inflation since at least 1931, and is still $100? Did you know that we have eight criminal statutes (and one state constitutional provision) regarding dueling? Or that those could be easily combined into one statute? Did you know that it used to be a felony to steal more than $1000 worth of things sounding in realty, such as timber, but now due to another criminal statute it may only be a misdemeanor? There are many other examples of laws that have been neglected and sorely need updated or corrected. For the second, our approach to law, and especially the creation of laws, must be base in principles of reason and science. An economy can not improve under burdensome taxation and regulation. Being hostile to business just drives jobs away and hurts workers. If legislators want to throw money at our problems, they should throw their own not the taxpayer’s money. A consistent philosophy is all that can be asked of any person, and that is what I offer.
- REPLY IN FEWER THAN 50 WORDS: What do you think the Legislature can do to improve work force development?
- Stop! The Legislature should let people know that work force development, and similar concepts of centrally controlling economic growth is counter-productive. The state should quit trying to hold people’s hands and lead them to developing their own skills. The work force will develop to fill the demands placed upon it. We’ve been throwing money at this idea for decades with no results.
- REPLY IN FEWER THAN 50 WORDS: Many West Virginia cities are struggling with their long-term municipal pension obligations. What do you think the state should do to help cities deal with municipal pensions?
- Nothing! The basic principle of capitalism is that in order to allow people to succeed, you must allow them to fail. The cities made these obligations, the cities must bite the bullet and meet their obligations. Learn from their mistakes and be wiser next time. Bailing out foolish decisions simply encourages more reckless behavior, we’d be back in this boat again in a few years, and again a few years later.
- REPLY IN FEWER THAN 50 WORDS: Students in West Virginia generally lag behind other countries in education. Do you favor more instruction days, adding merit pay for teachers, improving math and science instruction or some other option to improve education?
- About a hundred years ago, we nationalized the education industry. Education has gone downhill ever since. Who was the idiot who said we shouldn’t pay teachers based on merit, or that a math teacher should make the same as a social studies teacher? I can think of a hundred things to improve education . . . all of them would be opposed by the teachers’ union. See a pattern?
