Legislature 2008: W.Va.'s Economy

As they gear up for the 2008 regular session of the Legislature, reporters and editors from around West Virginia attended a Friday "lookahead" forum hosted by The Associated Press.

As AP reports, the conference kicked off with a panel discussion of whether the Mountain State is "Open for Business." The discussion focused on Unleashing Capitalism, the book published last year and edited by West Virginia University economics professor Russ Sobel.

Rather than debate the merits of the book, the panelists instead differed over how quickly to implement its libertarian proposals.

The book was published by the West Virginia Public Policy Foundation, one of a string of conservative, free-market think tanks begun in numerous states nationwide within the last several years. It was bankrolled by WVU donor Ken Kendrick (yes, that Ken Kendrick.)

Though the panel, selected by editors and publishers of AP's newspaper members, included no critic of the book, questions have been raised about its contents. Some have come from Sobel's colleagues at WVU's College of Business and Economics.

The CB&E's Clifford Hawley, for instance, blasted the book last year in an op-ed to The State Journal (no link available).

More recently, researchers at WVU's Institute for Public Affairs dismissed some of the book's findings in its most recent Public Affairs Reporter.

Ted Boettner, the newly minted executive director of the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy, called the book into question in a 2007 opinion piece. Dim views of the book have also been expressed by the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute and blogger Rick Wilson of the West Virginia Economic Justice Project.

The critics also include legislators from both parties, who took to the floor of the House of Delegates last year to denounce its chapter on West Virginia's coal mining industry as unsupported historical revisionism.

And Public Broadcasting sought to provide context to the book's allegations _ and to the argument conveyed by its contrasting cover photos _ in a piece last year that featured a testy exchange with Sobel.

Besides the editors and publishers who helped assemble Friday's panel, fans of the book includes West Virginia Media. Besides favorable coverage in its State Journal, the organization has hosted Sobel several times on its weekend morning television show.

The state Republican Party, meanwhile, has distributed free copies of the book and embraced its message as the foundation for its 2008 election strategy.

Sobel has decried allegations of partisan leanings. He has also appeared at GOP functions to declare that “The ideas put forth in my book are more consistent with those of the Republican Party than those of the Democratic party.”

The Register-Herald of Beckley also has a story on the Friday panel session.