West Virginia spends $8,988 per student in K-12 with an average class size of 14.1 students per teacher. This means we spend on average $126,731 per year per classroom. This represents spending in the top 20% among all states. Yet on the ACT test, WV students score 20.6 which is 39th overall. In Math, a critical area in my opinion, WV students score 19.5 which is 48th in the nation. Yet according to the legislature we need to raise teacher salaries, where is the money going and why aren’t we getting more for the dollars we are spending?

West Virginia continues to lead the pack in state government employment levels with 37,004 employees. The state has 20.3 employees per 1,000 state residents. This compares to a national average of 14.2 employees per 1,000 residents nationwide. States that border WV including Ohio, Kentucky, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland have 15.1 employees per 1,000 residents. West Virginia has nearly ONE THIRD more state government employees per resident than surrounding states. Is it any coincidence that West Virginians have nearly the lowest income in the nation? More bureaucrats cost more money and it takes more taxes to pay for them resulting in less money in YOUR POCKET. Source 2006 U.S. Census on Government.

I wonder if many people actually realize how much the WV government intervenes into our economy. WV ranks dead last in the Economic Freedom Index of North America. WV government intervenes into our economy to a greater extent than any other state in the nation. WV has the second largest share of state economic activity. In WV, 52 percent of all spending in the state is controlled by the government sector. We are also among the highest in terms of the share of the labor force employed by the government and the percent of land owned by the government. Even some countries formerly part of the Soviet Union, like Estonia, Latvia and Slovenia have more capitalist-based policy environments than West Virginia. If WV had Delaware’s policies, each West Virginian could be earning almost $10,000 more each year. This comes from Unleashing Capitalism by Russell Sobel, PHD WVU 2007.

Economic issues
Healthcare Issues
Government spending
Education

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