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West Virginia Politics WV Elections 2020

Interview with Charles Robert Sheedy Sr-Republican Candidate for WV Governor

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Welcome to this edition of the Richard Urban Show. I’m your host Richard Urban coming to you from historic Harpers Ferry, West Virginia and today, May 21, we’re very happy to have on the show Mr. Charles Sheedy, running for governor on the Republican ticket here in West Virginia. So please go ahead and introduce yourself.

“I thank you very much for having me on. My name is Charles Sheedy, Sr. I am a Republican candidate for the governor of West Virginia, I am a lifelong Republican, not a party switcher. My staff includes my wife, who’s my campaign manager and our public relations official, which is our golden retriever Susie. You may have seen us traveling around the state. We travel around the state, in our camper trailer and that enables us to be in touch with the people and get to know a lot of other travelers out there on the road also. We tend to stay at private campgrounds.  That keeps us in connection with the small business owners of these properties, also.  I embrace term limits, lower taxes and definitely want pro-life, pro-gun, and pro-God.” Sheedy said.

“So if you think that government is small now, it needs to be smaller. We have been campaigning now for over a year and a half, just about two years now. I decided to run in October of 2018. I’m not accepting corporate contributions or endorsements of any type. I feel that those lead to corruption. I am not a businessman or a politician. I’m a retired working man, retired combat veteran. I served with US Army, U.S. Army Reserves and went to the Army National Guard and retired from there in 2013. I’m also retired from the West Virginia Department of Highways. I worked there for thirty years and I have very intimate knowledge of state government and how things work; not the way they’re supposed to, but the way that they do work,” Sheedy continued.

Richard: I think you’ve already did cover your main three points that you’re emphasizing in your campaign. You mentioned several things, do you want to emphasize perhaps the three that are most important and dear to you?

“Definitely. Term limits, smaller government and lower taxes,” Sheedy answered.

Richard: Okay.  One of the issues that’s being discussed is the business and inventory tax and the personal property tax, so what would you do about those issues?

“The business inventory tax that does nothing but hurt our small businesses. I realized that it helps our county governments, but at the same time that is killing small business right now with this Coronavirus small businesses are hurting very badly. Some of the small businesses are going to go under. Some of them may try to come back. I see some of them not even attempting to come back. Because what happens is if we get hit with a second wave of this Coronavirus then they’re going to be in just as bad of shape, if not worse, than they already are,” Sheedy said.

“These people that own their own small businesses. My step-daughter and her husband, in Morgantown, they own Creek Roofing and Siding, which is a small business, they are hurting tremendously. They have building payments they have to make. They have inventory taxes that they have to pay” Sheedy explained.

“The inventory tax needs to go away. That has done nothing over years but hurt business opportunities, and the personal property taxes – that needs to go away. Why do you keep paying property taxes on your vehicles year after year after year after year? We are being taxed to death. “Personal income tax in the state.  You did not ask about that, sir, but I am going to tell you about that one. West Virginia pays the highest personal income tax of any neighboring state, and people that are making 18,000 a year, they are paying the highest percentage and you’re paying the maximum amount of personal income tax which that is definitely wrong,” Sheedy said..

Richard: You mentioned reducing the size of government. So when we remove these taxes, which sounds like a good idea, to me, then will we reduce the size, the government? Or would you have more like sales or user taxes or none of the above? You know, what I mean? How would we balance the budget?

“Definitely cut the size of government. Government is so over regulated right now with this Coronavirus updates coming out daily. You’ve got four government regulatory organizations that are fighting over how to reopen everything, they can’t decide on how to open things back up. And this is from a lack of leadership at the executive level. There’s just so many people in charge. The Homeland Security, National Guard, everybody is involved, everybody wants to have their input into everything re-opening back up and it’s just a quagmire and stagnant. That’s in Charleston right now,” Sheedy said.

“If I had been in charge, I would not have done all these executive orders I would have got on and recommended people use common sense, giving the guidelines and shutting the businesses down has just hurt everything,” Sheedy continued.

“Whose fault was it when we were shut down? It was the governor’s executive decision that was shut down. I don’t believe he has the authority to do that,” Sheedy said.

Richard: I was looking at some of the regulations in the West Virginia Constitution, and it seems like a lot of the Constitution issues have been violated, of course, West Virginia and U.S. Constitution, and I’m wondering, in some states, I noticed at least the legislature is reviewing the things and challenging and like they were able to get the courts to stop all the things in Wisconsin. But that doesn’t seem to be happening here. The legislature seems to be taking or having a minimal role. Is it by design or they’re not aggressive enough or maybe we need to review the laws so that this doesn’t happen again. What do you think?

“I don’t think it’s because they’re not being interested. We have a part-time legislature, which is a good thing, it’s a good thing that we only have a part-time legislature, but at the same time, the only one that can call special session on the legislature right now is the governor. Why would he want to do that and create more of a mess? Well, right now you need more of a mess. You need somebody, you don’t need an individual with the ultimate control that the governor currently has. So yes, the Constitution definitely needs to be revisited and amendments made to that so that the legislature can not necessarily meet in Charleston. But do like the state of Alaska does. The state of Alaska, the capital is in Juneau. So the only way in and out there is by airplane or boat.  There are no roads in or out of Juneau. So their legislature can meet electronically. That is something that needs to be looked at in West Virginia also. That way you’re going to eliminate a lot of the excessive payments for legislators to travel back and forth to Charleston,” Sheedy said in response.

Richard: Yeah, you’re right about that. There’s been a lot of these constitutional issues. I’m also wondering what your opinion is on this state-wide issue. I’ve been working with the issue of the forced vaccinations, meaning in West Virginia we have no vaccinations, no school. Do you think that’s the right policy or should we have a choice of what’s injected to our bodies or children’s bodies? What’s your opinion on that?

“I think everybody needs to have a choice. You need the choice to be able to decide what you want done and how you want it done. I am very skeptical of any virus being injected into me now, especially with the advent of microchips. I think they could place a microchip in you without your knowledge. And where is your freedom then? You have none, it is gone.” Sheedy said.

Richard: Yeah, that’s interesting, I was just reading about that. Recently. The technology is advancing. We don’t really know. And, in fact, there are studies that are showing, it’s well-known, that vaccines contain contaminants like the simian monkey virus from the polio vaccine. That’s a fact. So yeah, there’s so many questions about that and it’s a very, very concerning issues and it’s just that West Virginia has been behind the loop in that, or however you want to call it, the fact that we don’t have even any exemptions for a vaccination.  And there are no safety studies that have been done to show whether they are relatively more effective or more fatal. So, yeah, that’s a very concerning issue. And the governor hasn’t taken any leadership at all on that, unfortunately.

“No, he has not.  No leadership at all from the executive branch”

Richard:  So the whole policy, it doesn’t make any sense. I don’t think. What do you think?

“No, it does not.  It makes no sense at all, whatsoever. I’m the age where I remember plainly the Hong Kong flu that went back, went through back in the 60s, and my mother at the time driving me to the doctor’s office to get it to get a flu shot and I didn’t like shots. Well guess what? I ended up with it anyway. I never got the Hong Kong flu, but I truly believe that in my area right here in our small area of Marshall County, I believe that this actually went through here back in January. I think that I had it because I had a dry cough that went on for almost three weeks,” Sheedy said.

Richard: We know on the Republican side there’s several, about six or seven candidates for governor. How do you differentiate, or compare yourself? What’s unique about your platform compared to others?

“Number one, I’m not a party switcher. I’m a life-long Republican. So I didn’t just wake up one morning and decide, ‘Oh, I think I represent the Republican Party more than the Democrat party so I’m going to switch parties.  I’ve never done that, I’ve always been pro-life, pro God, pro-gun.  I just can’t see taking people’s rights and throwing them away and you’ll never get them back. And that’s where the Democrats are headed right now. Of course, Joe Manchin describes himself as a West Virginia Democrat. Well, there’s no such thing as a West Virginia Democrat.  I’m sorry.   He has aligned himself with Nancy Pelosi, he has aligned himself with Obama.  He aligned himself with Clinton. Took them all around the state.  So there’s no such thing as a West Virginia Democrat.  You’re either a Democrat or a Republican. So that being said, I’m very strong on term limits.  I believe that term limits lead to the inroads of corruption, along with endorsements.  Endorsements may not be money paid, but it is still a commitment that, ‘OK, we backed you; we told our constituents and our members to vote for you.  So now you owe us this’.  Well, that in itself is an inroad for corruption.  That is why I’m not accepting any endorsements,” Sheedy said.

Richard: I think you’ve given voters a clear idea about where you’re coming from on the important issues like First Amendment, Second Amendment, constitutional rights, term limits and endorsements.  To basically conclude, would you like to share anything else with the viewers about yourself or your campaign?

“Check me out on Facebook. I don’t have a web page, but check me out on Facebook. I have two different pages there, I have Charles Robert Sheedy and then I have Charles Robert Sheedy Sr., Republican candidate for governor. On that page, there’s a section down on the right hand side that gives you a little bit of information about me, and if you read through that, then if you have any questions, ask me because I answer my own questions, I don’t have a staff member answer questions for me, I answer my own question,” Sheedy concluded.

Richard: I’m sure that the viewers can find you there, and I hope they’ll take the time to listen to these different issues and make the best choice on June 9th and also we’ll be electing other individuals like three Supreme Court justices, so that’s huge.

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