Gov. Jim Justice filed his official candidacy paperwork for the 2024 Republican primary for U.S. Senate on the same day he gave his last State of the State address. It makes sense, as the event provided the perfect opportunity for him to kick off his campaign with a speech viewed by voters across the state, in which he could let them know what he’s done for them lately, but also what he hopes will get done in the months before the election.

“We climbed that mountain together. We pulled the rope together every step of the way, and the view at the top is breathtaking,” Justice said.

It will be up to ordinary West Virginians to decide whether they feel as though they are at the top of a mountain with a breathtaking view, or still facing the same (or worse) socio-economic challenges with which they were struggling 8 years ago.

In the meantime, lawmakers will have to carefully parse the budget bill for fiscal year 2025 they were handed Wednesday. Highlights given by Justice sound promising, but the devil is in the details and some of those details don’t feel much like minding the store properly in a fiscal year when all that flowing federal money we’ve gotten since 2020 will be turned off.

In his speech, Justice said “my administration does not believe in growing government.” But a few of his budget proposals could end up doing just that, according to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Eric Tarr, R-Putnam. He flagged some as having the potential for “base-building.”

“One of those things is that $140 million surplus … for Medicaid, or we can do an MCO tax by growing Medicaid and potentially then have instead of that $40 million another $100 million that we would have grown Medicaid and then had federal strings associated with that we would have had to go back, then that becomes part of our base budget,” Tarr said. “So, that $40 million is really a $100 million risk.”

It will be up to lawmakers to decide whether we are ready to build that base. Is the ship finally righted? Is it time to put the fruits of all that labor to work? They’ll have to make that call based on what best serves Mountain State residents AND what is the best use of their tax dollars.

“I believe that God always shows up. I believe in my life that what we all — every last one of you all — should be doing is making things better,” Justice said. “You can do so much for this great state, it’s unbelievable.”

It’s true, lawmakers can do it, if they get their priorities in order, and if they decide not to go back to the kick-the-can-down-the-road mentality they vowed to eradicate. Will that look anything like Justice’s grand vision? We’re about to find out.