As Uncle Sam tightens his wallet and lets fewer dollars trickle down to the states for highways, Constitution Party gubernatorial hopeful Butch Paugh sees a golden opportunity for West Virginia to turn free enterprise loose and spawn a healthier business climate.

That done, the write-in candidate theorizes, more businesses will invest huge sums in the state, creating more jobs and, in turn, expanding a tax base so that adequate dollars flow into the coffers of the financially strapped Division of Highways.

“We can build the tax base without increasing taxes if we would let the people produce more and not punish them for being a West Virginia citizen,” the Nettie resident told The Register-Herald editorial board.

“Businesses don’t like it here because of the tax structure. You can’t tax people into prosperity. That does not work. When you’re already on the bottom, kicking them again doesn’t work.”

Paugh says the state needs to take a penetrating and comprehensive look at how neighboring Virginia operates with lower taxes and a larger tax base.

“Ask them what we’re doing wrong and how come they’re getting the businesses and we’re not,” he says.

By enlarging the business community, Paugh maintains, the state would actually rake in more money for the general revenue account without raising taxes.

“I don’t know why the state can’t grasp that idea,” he said.

“The solution is, let’s look at the whole picture, find out what we’re doing wrong, correct it, cut back in spending. Some of it’s unnecessary. A lot of it out there is, I guarantee that. I will put money where we need it. Our nation as a whole is falling under a crumbling infrastructure. West Virginia has the same problem. The answer is not more taxes. It’s less taxes, or at least maintain the same. Bring the businesses in, then we’ll see it improve.”

Paugh is a veteran salesman dealing in industrial products, and he pastors two churches, or “fellowships” as he describes them, non-denominational flocks in Huttonsville and Summersville. At one time, he was chaplain of the Mountaineer Militia in Nicholas County.

On another issue, Paugh took no stand on broadband, acknowledging he wasn’t up on the subject.

‘Energy inefficient’

West Virginia needs to take full advantage of its abundant coal reserves but do so in a fashion that is environmentally sound without hampering businesses, and this admittedly could be a delicate balance, he says.

“I don’t think we’re energy deficient. We’re energy inefficient. We have the answers here. Coal is one of them, obviously. West Virginia is blessed with a huge energy source. We need to utilize that for our own good.

“Why not become an independent state and run our own state and our own energy resource? Use coal. Use it wisely. We keep looking at outside sources. Why not look in here at our own people? West Virginians are not stupid people. They are, I believe, the answer to their problems. If they’re left alone to do it. And get the federal government and state government off their backs and out of their own pockets. Let them generate the ideas. We could become a self-sustaining state in a matter of years if we had the right motivation to do so.”

Rather than being restrained by so much bureaucracy, Paugh says the coal industry needs more authority to police itself.

Taxes need to be lowered for businesses since they ultimately pass it on to the consumer, anyway, if able, at least to the point the consumer simply turns to another supplier, he says.

Private sector holds key to health care

His approach to bridging the gap to the uninsured is to let competition soar in the private sector so that a better health care product is provided and eventually costs come down.

“It wouldn’t happen overnight,” he said. “We didn’t get into this mess overnight. Our nation is borrowing money, or stealing money, from taxpayers to bail out banks and foreign banks. The Federal Reserve bought into the banking system and nationalized nine huge banks (in Congress’ bailout move). That is not the answer. The answer has always been free enterprise. It will be again, if we let it work.”

While unsure as to how this would be done, Paugh says he favors some type of incentive so private employers would be spurred to provide health coverage to workers who now find themselves without access to treatment.

Paugh called for a balance between patient and doctor in medical costs, recalling the time when a physician pocketed a mere $5, a chicken, or some other means of barter as payment.

Reforming DHHR

Paugh commended the Department of Health and Human Resources for performing “some good work,” but said the agency has become inefficient to a large degree, wasting public money with little or no oversight.

“Most of the answers you hear is to throw more money at it,” he said.

“That doesn’t always work. It’s way too big. You’ve got so much bureaucracy. By the time you get one dollar moved down the chain, you end up with a nickel. We need to get rid of some of that waste.”

Paugh acknowledged that solutions don’t come quickly, pointing out it took him 10 years to get an amended driver’s license that accommodated his religious beliefs.

A Paugh administration would see the ax fall across state government to cut payrolls and make government more efficient in the long run, he said.

Gambling funds squandered?

Paugh is convinced that money flowing from the hands of gamblers into West Virginia’s coffers is, to some extent, being wasted.

If that is the case, is the PROMISE Scholarship account being shortchanged since it relies exclusively on the proceeds of video poker machines?

Paugh isn’t sure, but if he is elected, he vows to undertake a long, hard examination of the money generated in the slot parlors across the state.

“I don’t know where the money goes,” he said. “No one apparently does. But it can be found out.”

Personally, Paugh says he opposes the concept of gambling on moral grounds, yet is realistic when it comes to a hard fact of life — West Virginia leans heavily on the industry to maintain its services, with estimates running from 20 percent to 33 percent, and stay within the confines of its budget as the state Constitution mandates.

Audit turnpike, then decide tolls

Paugh wants to put every facet of state government under the microscope and that includes the state Parkways Authority, overseer of the West Virginia Turnpike.

“I understood they were supposed to have taken the tolls off a long time ago,” he said.

Since its conception, he wondered, just how many dollars have been turned in at the toll plazas, and even with the bond indebtedness, why is there no end in sight?

“We need to look into that,” he said.

“They’ve raised billions of dollars. Maintenance doesn’t cost billions of dollars. It’s going somewhere. Somebody is doing something with it. I want to find out where it’s going, then decide what to do with the tolls.”

— E-mail:

mannix@register-herald.com