Gubernatorial campaign trail brings Miller through Parkersburg
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PARKERSBURG -- The 2024 campaign is in full swing, but it's been that way for a while for Chris Miller.
The Republican business owner and entrepreneur from Huntington filed pre-candidacy papers for governor back in 2021, figuring he needed the lead time as a self-proclaimed political outsider.
"I've been cranking this for well over a year," Miller said Friday while in Parkersburg to meet with folks, raise money and attend the Original Toughman Contest at Parkersburg High School.
A boxer who has participated in his share of fighting events, Miller said he's ready for a different kind of competition.
"I promised my wife I'd hang up the gloves to get into this crazy political thing," he said.
Miller is the son of U.S. Rep. Carol Miller, R-W.Va., but hasn't run for office before. He said he threw his hat in the ring because he and other people are "tired of bureaucrats and politicians and attorneys running everything."
"Sometimes you have to reinvent the system to ... accomplish the things that need to get done," Miller said.
The governor is the CEO of the state, Miller said, and the board of directors he answers to, if elected, would be the voters.
He warned the state is headed for a financial "catastrophe" as the population ages, younger people move out and birth rates decline. But he argues the state can reverse that trend by lowering taxes and utilizing its resources to attract people and businesses.
Miller said he'd like to see West Virginia "become the Florida for military retirees." The state has the outdoor elements and other aspects of a "conservative kind of lifestyle" that would entice them, along with cheap housing. Couple that with some incentives, reductions in taxes and data-driven efforts to draw interested people, he said, and the Mountain State would be enticing to experienced people looking to start a second career.
"That's one of the fastest ways that we can not only grow our population but bolster the workforce, because we have a workforce participation problem," Miller said.
Miller said West Virginia has abundant natural resources, particularly coal and natural gas, that can make power cheaper to produce as technology advances.
"You have to have power to grow and fuel an economy ... and you can't do that on solar and wind," he said. "I believe we can take West Virginia and turn it into basically ... the battery of the East Coast."
That will not only entice businesses but benefit residents, Miller said.
The state's tax system needs to be welcoming to businesses, but he said new employers shouldn't be getting tax breaks that everyday West Virginians still have to pay.
To make up for the tax reductions he advocates, Miller said he would take a businessman's mentality to eliminating waste in state government.
"There's a difference between gutting things and getting rid of waste," he said. "I would audit every dime that's spent inside of government."
Miller said he supports drug testing welfare recipients, not simply to deny benefits to substance abusers but to provide them with needed services.
"I don't think that my tax dollars should benefit a drug cartel in Mexico," he said. "But it also gives us a chance to help people."
Evan Bevins can be reached at ebevins@newsandsentinel.com