Aug. 6, 2010
EDITORIAL: While Manchin Preened, West Virginia Suffered
Everyone knows that Democratic Governor Joe Manchin has been working hardest on one major goal throughout his five years as the state's CEO: succeeding Robert C. Byrd in the U.S. Senate. Everything he's done--and left undone--has been geared towards that singlemost important personal goal.
But hey, wait a minute: wasn't there a state government to run? Job growth to stimulate? In short, weren't there other, even more important goals Joe should have had for the people of West Virginia?
The following chart says it all in terms of what happened to West Virginia while Joe got ready for his big close-up whenever Byrd passed from the scene. Take a look:
While West Virginia did not have the highest unemployment rate in the nation during 2009, we did have the highest increase in unemployment, second only to Nevada, of any state in the union. We went from 4.5 to 9.1, more than doubling the number of unemployed across West Virginia, right in the heart of Manchin's time as Governor.
Now then, this was a recession, and every state had serious problems with unemployment. No one would expect West Virginia to be any different on that score. But how in the world did we become the state with the second highest unemployment rate?
Answer: look back to that year, 2008. It was an election year, and Joe Manchin's re-election was in the bag. Surely he could have done something, anything to stiimulate job creation for working West Virginians? Heck, the voters then would have probably liked to have heard a serious private sector jobs program from the Governor for a change.
But then, like now, like his entire term in office as Governor, Joe did precious little except rehearse his acceptance speech for his party's nomination for U.S. Senate.
Governor Manchin, you'd done very little for the working people of West Virginia, who put their trust in you in the hopes that you would look out for their best interests and help create some new jobs in West Virginia. But the seventeen flat screen TVs you put in at the Governor's Mansion at our expense, you must have been distracted.
Seriously distracted.
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EDITORIAL: While Manchin Preened, West Virginia Suffered
Everyone knows that Democratic Governor Joe Manchin has been working hardest on one major goal throughout his five years as the state's CEO: succeeding Robert C. Byrd in the U.S. Senate. Everything he's done--and left undone--has been geared towards that singlemost important personal goal.
But hey, wait a minute: wasn't there a state government to run? Job growth to stimulate? In short, weren't there other, even more important goals Joe should have had for the people of West Virginia?
The following chart says it all in terms of what happened to West Virginia while Joe got ready for his big close-up whenever Byrd passed from the scene. Take a look:
While West Virginia did not have the highest unemployment rate in the nation during 2009, we did have the highest increase in unemployment, second only to Nevada, of any state in the union. We went from 4.5 to 9.1, more than doubling the number of unemployed across West Virginia, right in the heart of Manchin's time as Governor.
Now then, this was a recession, and every state had serious problems with unemployment. No one would expect West Virginia to be any different on that score. But how in the world did we become the state with the second highest unemployment rate?
Answer: look back to that year, 2008. It was an election year, and Joe Manchin's re-election was in the bag. Surely he could have done something, anything to stiimulate job creation for working West Virginians? Heck, the voters then would have probably liked to have heard a serious private sector jobs program from the Governor for a change.
But then, like now, like his entire term in office as Governor, Joe did precious little except rehearse his acceptance speech for his party's nomination for U.S. Senate.
Governor Manchin, you'd done very little for the working people of West Virginia, who put their trust in you in the hopes that you would look out for their best interests and help create some new jobs in West Virginia. But the seventeen flat screen TVs you put in at the Governor's Mansion at our expense, you must have been distracted.
Seriously distracted.
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