HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTION NO. 68

(By Mr. Speaker, Mr. Kiss, and Delegates Trump, Martin, Varner, Michael, Mezzatesta, Anderson, Fletcher,

Hall, Romine and L. White)
Requesting the United States Congress to amend the Internal Revenue Code to exempt from federal income taxes the income received by the holders of bonds issued pursuant to the provisions of Senate Bill 175, the "West Virginia Pension Liability Redemption Act."

Whereas, The State of West Virginia has an aggregate unfunded liability in its pension programs of some four billion dollars; and
Whereas, The Governor of West Virginia has proposed to the West Virginia Legislature and the West Virginia Legislature has enacted Senate Bill 175 providing for the issuance of pension bonds to fund the retirement plans of the State of West Virginia and to fix the amortization of the current, unfunded liability; and
Whereas, If all of the bonds to be issued pursuant to this legislation could be issued as "tax-exempt" bonds, so that the income received therefrom by the holders of said bonds were exempt from federal income taxes, then the bonds could be issued at substantially lower interest rates than they will pay as taxable bonds, resulting in the savings of tens of millions of dollars to the citizens of West Virginia; and
Whereas, In this era of large federal budgetary surpluses, it seems reasonable that the United States of America could take this modest action to assist West Virginia, whose citizens, while being patriotic Americans, still enjoy lower per capita incomes than do the citizens of most other sister states; therefore, be it
Resolved by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That the West Virginia Legislature does hereby respectfully request that the United States Congress will enact appropriate legislation to amend the Internal Revenue Code to permit the pension bonds to be issued and sold as "tax-exempt" bonds, so that the income received from said bonds by the holders thereof would be exempt from federal income taxes; and, be it
Further Resolved, That the Clerk of the West Virginia House of Delegates is directed to forward copies of this resolution to the Clerk of the United States Senate and the Clerk of the United States House of Representatives and to the members of the West Virginia Congressional Delegation including The Honorable Robert C. Byrd, The Honorable John D. Rockefeller, IV, The Honorable Alan B. Mollohan, The Honorable Robert E. Wise, Jr. and The Honorable Nick Joe Rahall, II.