A group committed to ending child poverty in West Virginia unveiled a list of 18 policy proposals that it will fight for over the next several years and said it will work to inform voters about legislative candidates who share its priorities.
The list from the four-year-old Our Children, Our Future campaign, includes proposals to improve education and job growth, to improve the health of West Virginians and to improve the fairness of the political system.
The state, in the midst of a fiscal crisis, currently cannot afford the services it already provides, much less new ones.
State Sen. Ed Gaunch, R-Kanawha, told the group that he expects a budget to pass next week and expects it to include either a 1 percent increase in the sales tax or a $1 increase in the tobacco tax.
Several of the group's new proposals come with matching revenue increases, intended to pay for the initiatives.
Among the proposals are an update to the fuel tax and Division of Motor Vehicle fees to fund roads projects, tax credits for hiring and training laid off miners, a tax on pain pills to fund drug treatment and a fund to help cities tear down or repurpose dilapidated buildings.
While the group is technically nonpartisan, its proposals - some of which involve raising taxes or revenues - tend to fall more in line with a Democratic platform.
The group calls for repealing the state's new right-to-work law and restoring its recently repealed prevailing wage law, moves that would undo the flagship accomplishments of this year's Republican-controlled Legislature.
The group would like to create a state fiscal office, a nonpartisan agency to evaluate past tax policies and loopholes to see if they have been effective.
Other ambitious proposals include ending youth incarceration, improving early childhood education and making college debt free.
"There is no silver bullet for fighting poverty," said Karen Williams, chairwoman of the campaign's steering committee, which developed the proposals during an 18-month collaborative process. "It took 40 years of economic decline to get us into this mess, it will take years to get out of it."
The group plans on asking candidates for state office for their positions on each of their 18 proposals, then publishing a voter's guide with the results and distributing the guide to 20,000 voters. They plan 15 voter forums with candidates.
"Hang in there, persevere," Gaunch told the group. "You don't usually get bills passed the first year."
Reach David Gutman at david.gutman@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-5119 or follow @davidlgutman on Twitter.