Gov. Joe Manchin stuck with familiar themes in delivering his State of the State Address on Wednesday night. As is often the case with an incumbent politician, he accentuated the positive accomplishments from his time in office, even while proposing a mid-year cut in the state’s budget because of declining revenues due to the world’s current economic struggles.
Marshall University and the town of Huntington have a part in the role Manchin sees the state of West Virginia playing in our nation’s future. Much of that comes from his encouragement of a college education. It’s easy to criticize political leaders, but the leadership of West Virginia certainly has echoed the governor’s words that, “success starts in the classroom,” by its actions. Manchin also gave insight into projects he had enacted in previous addresses. For example, the PROMISE Scholarship was born of a dedication by the state to get more West Virginia kids to enter the world of higher education. The hope, of course, was that they would stay in West Virginia upon graduating, which hasn’t happened at any higher percentage than before the PROMISE was enacted. In any event, enrollment is up in our state institutions and the state’s government has played an integral part on that.
Of benefit to Marshall students would be the governor’s attempt to freeze tuition rates in our state for the upcoming school year. Rising costs of college and tighter restrictions being forced upon the PROMISE Scholarship would make this an important step in helping more people achieve a college level education.
There would be the potential of a hidden cost for students of a tuition freeze, though. Would Marshall respond to a tuition freeze by raising other fees? Would services offered to students be reduced or compromised? Would the number of classes be cut or the size of classes be increased? Would the quality of the food being served in the school’s dining hall get worse?? [No, it’s not likely that last concern could happen. If you’ve eaten at one lately you know what I mean!]
Even though the issues of stimulus package spending, clean water funding and small city block grants are all important for our city and state, it is Manchin’s involvement in our state education, which focuses on developing more trained workers and employing them in the state, that would directly effect the Huntington community the most. Manchin’s address could even be called the “E Speech,” meaning that it focused around education, economy, and energy. It is education, however, that helps the other two areas succeed in the state of West Virginia.
Despite the requested budget cut of 3.4%, the Governor took a very positive stance about our state and its economic condition. The economic hard times that have hit the country have not been as harsh in West Virginia as in other parts of the nation. Manchin is due some credit for that and, understandably, that was made known in his address. Of course, the point is sometimes made that West Virginia doesn’t rise as high as other states during the good times so it doesn’t have as far to fall during the bad, but in any event it seems to be weathering the current economic turmoil fairly well.
As far as well-spoken politicians go, Manchin is among the best. He sounds as if he knows what he is talking about and confidently shares examples of his success from around the state. He represents West Virginia well on the national stage. I think that he did exactly what he has done in past years to contribute to his own political success Wednesday. He proudly spoke about what’s right with the state of West Virginia and offered solutions for what is wrong.
No comments:
Post a Comment