West Virginia has good law enforcement officers. We need more of them. Their pursuit of justice and peace serves the most vulnerable members of our community, forming an indispensable part of our shared project: that our people of West Virginia might flourish as the happiest in the union.
Law enforcement officers routinely confront danger in order to guard their neighbors from the violence and injustice of wicked men. They have received, as their thankless task, a society suffering the breakdown — and even erasure — of its traditional forms of peacekeeping: strong families, active civic associations, gracious moral norms and neighborhoods where everyone looks after everyone else. How such a breach was opened-up may be the subject of debate. But that law enforcement officers have, nevertheless, continued to stand in that breach, have made up for such missing civic virtues, and have shouldered an unequal weight of responsibility for the peace of our communities — this much is simply undeniable.
West Virginia can affirm its commitment to those who take up this solemn responsibility by exempting their pay and pensions from income taxation. This exemption would acknowledge and realize the particular vocation of the city, county and state law enforcement officer, who operates as a servant of the people of West Virginia, protecting and enacting our high aspirations for a just, ordered and happy society by routinely confronting those who threaten it “on the ground.” Although often a burden, in some ways, taxes can be a sort of symbol of an individual’s contribution to the common good — which ought to be considered an explicit aim of their government’s purpose in the first place. Tax relief for all is important. Law enforcement officers, however, already contribute to this common good by their continued risk of life and limb. Already taxed by virtue of their profession of dangerous service, our police officers — along with our emergency responders and firefighters — ought not to be “taxed” twice.
Our laws do not merely serve to allow and prohibit what can and cannot be done — they can often also “teach.” And such a law as this could teach what every aspiring police officer already knows: their work transcends mere employment and self-interest. And it even transcends those basic civic obligations for which we all are responsible. For unlike every other good and noble work, police work is a gift of self, made to the whole community without reserve: the willingness to die for one’s friends and neighbors — which is a requisite for beginning police work, and a mark of excellence in its performance.
In recent years, however, the profession of law enforcement has faced unjust vilification. The sweeping demonization of police has created challenges for recruitment and morale: who would devote their lives to keeping the peace after years of propaganda, from the establishment media, that characterized such a noble aspiration as only the mark of hateful, violent and “criminal” men and women? West Virginia has an opportunity to demonstrate the love we have for those who devote their lives to keeping the peace. A tax exemption would grant our state’s moral support to these men and women, remediating at least some of the damage that unjust suspicions and unchecked aspersions have wreaked on their calling.
Critics on the left may argue that such an exemption would introduce inequities. I believe this is a wrong-headed understanding. A state in which blue-collar workers pay taxes — while multi-national corporate executives buy and trade financial assets in order to skirt them — is one that suffers from inequity. A state, though, where such an irreplaceable service of sacrifice is actually rewarded, does not.
Critics on the right may argue that tax exemption represents some sort of fiscally imprudent loss of state revenue. This strikes me as a shallow argument. A state that attracts virtuous, servant-hearted law enforcement officers will make up for these minuscule fiscal costs by large gains in public security and trust, through reduced turnover costs in city police and county sheriffs’ departments across the state — and through the thwarting of the vicious and expensive effects of crime.
And yet, relieving law enforcement officers from income taxation — as well as emergency responders and firefighters — is more than a financial investment. It is a clear statement about the kind of society we ought to build up, and a clear expression of the kind of people we are: We are West Virginians — and West Virginians honor sacrifice, love justice, reward faithful service and work as a team for the sake of our common health. West Virginia has an opportunity to lead the country through example here: let us seize it.
Delegate Pat McGeehan, R-Hancock, is the Majority Leader of the WV House of Delegates. He resides in Chester.
