According to USA Facts West Virginia got 27% of its revenue from the Federal Government in FY2021! Since then, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law passed, and West Virginia, so far, has gotten a whopping $4.7 billion in funding from it. (By comparison, West Virginia’s ‘general fund’ spending for FY2024 only slightly exceeds that amount, being $4.87 billion. Granted (pun intended), we need to divide that $4.7 billion by the years since passage of the law (about 3 years), but clearly West Virginia is getting a *lot* of government funding.
Where is that money going to? Here’s the list to date:
- $1.3 billion for high-speed internet.
- $1.2 billion through Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program to provide access to high-speed internet to everyone in WV.
- $25.1 million to expand middle-mile infrastructure in state (129,000 households in WV are enrolled in the Affordable Connectivity Program)
- $267 million to provide clean and safe water across the state and improve water infrastructure.
- *$195 million over five years (under Bipartisan Infrastructure Law) to improve public transit ($97.4 million has been received, to date).
- *$20.5 million for the EPA’s Clean School Bus program.
- *$46 million over five years to support expansion of EV charging in state. ($26.2 million received so far)
- *$123.2 million for clean energy, energy efficiency, and power, including
- $28.9 million for weatherization
- $4.5 million through State Energy Program
- $3.3 million through Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant
- $11.4 million to prevent outages and make power grid more resilient
- $42.6 million for airports
- $7.2 million for ports and waterways
- $94.7 million for infrastructure resilience (including $8.6 million for flood mitigation)
- $11.4 million for cleaning up Superfund and brownfield sites
- $335.7 million for capping orphaned oil and gas wells and reclaiming abandoned mine lands
And we didn’t even need to grovel at Biden’s feet to get it!
For comparison, here are some of the things Trump did to West Virginia:
- Nearly $8 million in high-speed broadband in West Virginia (Oct. 2020)
- More than $3.2 million in a loan and two grants to help improve the economic health in rural Southern West Virginia by assisting in the development and expansion of small businesses and local communities (Oct, 2020)
- Increased disaster relief funds from 75% of eligible costs to 90%.
- “W.Va. Guard receives over $40 million in Military Construction, Defense appropriations”
And that’s all I could find.
West Virginia’s poverty level rose under Trump in 2018. WV GDP growth was 1.3%, 37th in the nation, for the first quarter of 2018, 2.6% for the year, 10th in the nation for 2017.
Additionally, this is from Manchin’s statement on Trump’s proposed 2020 budget:
“I have always said that our national budget should be fiscally responsible and reflect our values and our priorities. Unfortunately, the budget proposal from the President cuts Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, ends protections for people with pre-existing conditions, severely underfunds West Virginia economic development, and, somehow still leaves us with years of trillion dollar deficits. This is not what the country needs or expects and the President’s budget falls short of the big fix that this country needs.”
More details can be found here.
Not surprisingly, Trump chose to lie about West Virginia’s economic progress under his term.
Hampshire County Democrats 