End Government Waste
What We're Up Against
Our tax dollars must benefit tax payers, not tax dodgers and profiteers.
No more lavish office furniture, no more fancy retreats paid for with disaster relief money, no more government waste cover ups, and no more bloated payouts to politically-connected Good Old Boys.
Our Plan
The governor will attend at least one public Town Hall in each county, each year, in order to take questions and feedback about the budget. (See our Government of the People plan.)
These analyses will include:
- opportunity costs,
- long term health impacts,
- losses of property rights,
- clean-up costs,
- and boom-bust impacts.
The analyses must also be clear about who is getting benefits. No longer can we allow working families’ taxes to be redistributed for economic ventures that primarily benefit the already-wealthy at the expense of our health, land and long term job stability.
- Ensure that tax breaks provided on claims of job creation are tied to the actual creation of jobs.
- If the jobs promised are not created, they will pay back our money with interest.
- Create a Spending Taxpayer Council on Government Waste to identify potential sources of waste, fraud, and corruption.
Every year, out-of-state companies dodge millions in property taxes through a mechanism called PILOTs. In a PILOT agreement, a county government purchases a piece of land and leases it back to the company, so the company can avoid paying taxes. All future PILOTs must:
- Be approved by local School Boards, in addition to Economic Development Authorities;
- Require a cost-benefit analysis before approval .
- Require transparency about every agreement, and the revenue it has generated or failed to generate.
- Include an agreement about the long-term revenue to be created, and a clawback clause to hold companies accountable when they do not produce revenue.
- Include an automatic sunset period of no more than five years, after which point, the agreement must be renegotiated .
No one politician or slate of candidates can win this plan alone. We need you.
If you have an idea for how to make this plan stronger, or if you would like to lend a hand to win it, contact our co-chair Stephen Smith at stephen@wvcantwait.com.