The West Virginia governor, Patrick Morrisey, and a Mountain State legislator, Chris Rose, think they see an opportunity to mooch off our prosperity.
Morrisey, last week, in the hours after our Blue Wave state elections, sent a message to the red counties in Virginia via Facebook, assuming that he feels their frustration.
ICYMI
“It’s about to get awful blue in the Commonwealth of Virginia,” wrote Morrisey, a Brooklyn-born, New Jersey-bred Rutgers alum who only moved to West Virginia, and Harpers Ferry – barely inside the border – at that, when he was 39 years old.
Guy is as West Virginia as Tony Soprano, with the added touch that, before he got into elected politics, he made his living as a pharmaceutical lobbyist, and now runs a state set backwards a generation by the opioid crisis that he made gobs of money advocating for.
Back to Jersey Boy’s post-election message to Virginia:
“Don’t wait for the high taxes to heavy regulations to come, now is your chance to escape to wild and wonderful West Virginia,” Morrisey wrote.
The post came a day after Rose, who is at least from West Virginia – Rose identifies as a fourth-generation coal miner – launched a publicity stunt in the form of a State Senate resolution inviting 27 counties in Virginia and three in Maryland to follow the country roads.
ICYMI
- Vexit: What really happens if Virginia counties secede? (from Jan. 29, 2020)
The resolution got my belated attention because one of the counties invited is Augusta County, the ancestral home of Augusta Free Press, and for me personally, I’m descended from a long line of Grahams that first settled here in the 1730s.
“This resolution is about empowering communities to choose governance that truly reflects their values and needs,” Rose said, emphasizing, in the press release that he posted on his Facebook page, “that the move could address residents’ concerns over policies in their current states that may not align with local priorities, such as Second Amendment rights, economic development and rural representation.”
Now, a dose – several doses – of reality.
I haven’t seen anybody on our side of the Maginot Line asking for this, one, and a big reason for that is, right now, our localities, largely, do pretty well getting state tax dollars from our wealthy brethren up in Northern Virginia, where the standard of living is solid.
To wit: the latest data has median household income up in Fairfax County at $150,113, whereas here in Augusta County, we’re at $79,972.
Median household income over in wild, wonderful West Virginia: $57,917.
Ouch.
So, let’s say we decide to up and secede from Virginia to hitch our wagon to West Virginia: the second we do so, we become their Fairfax County, paying more than our fair share of state taxes to our poorer neighbors, as opposed to being the ones who get subsidies from the folks to our north and east.
As it stands now, Northern Virginia subsidizes our roads, our schools.
We go from that to, we’d be paying for roads and schools and other state services for other folks, meaning, you guessed it, our local taxes either have to go up to account for what we’re not only losing from Northern Virginia, but what we’re sending towards folks out west, or, we just make do with roads crumbling and schools not able to afford to pay the teachers.
All of that, for “Second Amendment rights” – which, incidentally, that’s a federal issue anyway; the MAGAs love to harp on how “they’re coming to take your guns,” because they don’t have much else – and also “economic development and rural representation”?
What kind of “economic development” might Gov. Morrisey and State Sen. Rose be thinking for us over here in the I-81 corridor?
We’re long since past advances in musketry fueling economic growth, y’all.
As for “rural representation,” I reached out to our local, rural Republicans who represent us in Richmond, and heard back from two, Chris Head, who is based down in Roanoke, but somehow represents me up in Waynesboro, 95 miles away, in the State Senate – gerrymandering! – that he doesn’t have enough information to comment, which is fair, because, let’s be clear here, there’s not going to be enough information to comment, because this is just the governor and state senator over there trying to needle Democrats to our east.
The other, Ellen Campbell, whose House district represents Waynesboro, Staunton and parts of Augusta and Rockbridge – Rockbridge, oddly, didn’t make State Sen. Rose’s list of invites; I’d be offended if I were Rockbridge – offered a classic zinger to the Mountaineers as her response.
“I’ve seen this on social media but have not received a formal invitation,” Campbell said via email. “I would say if they’re interested in a change, those 55 counties in West Virginia can come home to The Commonwealth. ‘Country Roads’ was about Virginia anyway.”
Gotta say, I didn’t vote for Ellen Campbell last week, but that – that was good.
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Chris Graham
