BRADENTON, Fla. – West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice vetoed the fiscal 2018 budget, calling lawmakers who had passed it “childish.”
Justice, a Democrat, on Thursday said signing the $4.1 billion general fund budget passed by the Republican-led Legislature the previous weekend would be tantamount to signing a “death certificate.”
The governor accused lawmakers of telling lies and said that both parties engaged in one-upmanship to thwart devising a compromise budget that would move the state forward.
“We all should take ownership for this,” he said about the budget that passed, “but what we have is nothing more than a bunch of political bull-you-know-what.”
Justice, who won his first political office last November, began his press conference using a visual aid to show how little the bare-bones budget would support.
“People around us are suffering,” he said. “We’ve got to stop the nonsense that goes on here.”
Calling himself a “dreamer,” Justice found no support for his recommended budget. He had proposed closing a $500 million budget gap with measures such as taxing sodas, cigarettes, wealthy state residents and gross receipts of businesses.
In a job-creation initiative that also lacked support, Justice had also proposed a $2.8 billion bond financing program for transportation projects by raising the state gas tax by 4.5 cents per gallon and raising West Virginia Turnpike tolls.
Although Justice thought he had a compromise deal with the Senate last weekend, and had announced an agreement was imminent, the House didn't consider it.
With lawmakers unwilling to raise new taxes, their final budget cut $100 million from higher education, healthcare and other programs, and tapped the state’s rainy day fund for $90 million.
Senate President Mitch Carmichael, R-Jackson, and House Speaker Tim Armstead, R-Kanawha, had both urged Justice to approve the budget, saying it reflected reality.
“We cannot continue to spend taxpayer dollars at the same level while our revenue collections decrease,” Carmichael said.
Armstead said Justice spent the entire legislative session criticizing Republicans for not embracing his “massive” tax increase proposals.
“The governor needs to accept the reality that his tax increase proposals simply do not have the support of the vast majority of elected representatives in the Legislature," Armstead said. “The people in our districts have told us loud and clear they are tired of seeing tax-and-spend Charleston politicians constantly asking for more money to maintain a government that's grown too large for our state's population.”
West Virginia’s multiyear budget imbalance and declining state revenues triggered three downgrades in the past year.
Moody's Investors Service lowered its ratings on the state’s $393.6 million of general obligation bonds to Aa2 from Aa1 in February.
Fitch Ratings in September downgraded its GO ratings to AA from AA-plus, while S&P Global Ratings downgraded the state’s GOs to AA-minus from AA in April 2016.
Justice didn't say when he would call a special session to resume budget negotiations.
Last year, then-Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin – also a Democrat - vetoed the state budget under similar circumstances, after failing to negotiate revenue-raising measures with Republicans.
