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Legislature should work with plan

Leaders in the West Virginia Legislature were working on their version of the state budget before Gov. Jim Justice took office. For that reason, concern he expressed Monday about lawmakers not presenting a budget plan yet was a bit misplaced.

But the spirit of the governor’s news conference certainly appeared to be one of compromise — and legislators of both parties ought to be delighted about that.

Just after he took office, Justice proposed two budgets. One calls for about $450 million in new taxes for the general revenue fund and another $150 million for the State Road Fund. His other budget was not really an alternative. It was meant to demonstrate what Justice believed would happen if legislators failed to go along with his tax proposals. It envisioned drastic actions such as closing state parks and colleges.

It was little wonder, then, that Republicans who control both houses of the Legislature adopted a confrontational attitude toward the Democrat governor.

As we have pointed out, Justice’s initial proposals were simply unaffordable. Neither Mountain State families nor the businesses that provide jobs could afford his tax increases.

By Monday, Justice apparently had come to the same conclusion, to his enormous credit.

He has proposed a new budget plan, this one with fewer tax increases and more cuts in government spending.

His comments on spending serve to illustrate what appears to be a new attitude. The plan Justice originally put forth called for only about $26 million in state spending cuts.

But on Monday, he said he could accept $50 million. “If (legislators) can find $150 million in possible cuts, I’d be all in,” the governor added.

Hundreds of millions of dollars a year in higher taxes remain in the governor’s alternative budget proposal. That is not a good thing, and it is something lawmakers should address.

Justice’s press conference amounts to the governor extending an olive branch to fiscal conservatives. They should accept it in the spirit of compromise — and improve upon Justice’s new budget proposal.

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