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Trump’s budget would cut funding for Appalachia — allies in coal country are livid

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D

Dalek

Member
Trump's budget would cut funding for Appalachia — and his allies in coal country are livid

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During the campaign, Donald Trump billed himself as the ”last shot" for coal country. He alone could save regions like Appalachia that had long suffered from poverty and dwindling coal jobs. And voters in West Virginia and eastern Kentucky believed him — choosing Trump over Hillary Clinton by wide, wide margins.

So it's striking that President Trump's first budget proposal would slash and burn several key programs aimed at promoting economic development in coal regions — most notably, the Appalachian Regional Commission and the Economic Development Administration. In recent years, these programs have focused on aiding communities that have been left behind as mining jobs vanished.

Even some of Trump's staunchest allies were livid at the proposed cuts. ”I am disappointed that many of the reductions and eliminations proposed in the President's skinny budget are draconian, careless and counterproductive," said Rep. Hal Rogers, a senior House Republican from a key coal-mining district in southeastern Kentucky.

So what gives? It's possible Trump just didn't put much thought into these reductions — and didn't realize (or didn't care) that he was backhanding his biggest supporters. Or it's possible Trump genuinely believes he's going to bring back coal jobs in Appalachia, as he's promised, and hence figured there's no need for all those other government programs.

Except Trump can't bring back all the mining jobs that have disappeared over the past 30 years — it's just not feasible. That's a promise he won't keep. And now he's cutting the region's safety net, too.

Trump wants to kill two big programs aimed at helping coal country

First, Trump's proposing to eliminate the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC), an independent agency set up in 1965 ”to address the persistent poverty and growing economic despair of the Appalachian Region." Since October 2015, the ARC has invested $175.7 million in 662 projects around the region, with a disproportionate focus on ”distressed" counties and coal towns. In some places, that means new highways or broadband infrastructure. In others, it means grants to help former coal communities develop, say, outdoor recreation industries instead.
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A government review estimated that, last year, the ARC created or saved at least 23,000 jobs and provided 25,500 households with infrastructure services such as water or broadband. There have been criticisms of the program over the years — it's odd to have a standalone agency for this one region, and the ARC often focuses on bigger towns and neglects rural areas — but it's also broadly popular with Democrats and Republicans alike in Appalachia.

Second, Trump is proposing to zero out the Economic Development Administration (EDA), which sits within the Commerce Department and provides about $250 million per year in grants to support economic growth in certain regions. During the Obama years, the EDA began devoting a sizable portion of that money to coal communities around the country that were suffering economically as cheap natural gas and new air pollution rules shriveled the coal industry. (The EDA also supports non-coal communities, providing trade adjustment assistance and other services.)
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Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, one of the few Democrats who tends to side with Trump on various issues, told constituents at a town hall on Thursday that he was not happy with these cuts, either.

Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate majority leader who hails from Kentucky, has stayed silent so far. In the past, McConnell has vocally opposed efforts by his colleagues to defund the ARC — though he has supported reforms to the program. On Thursday, all he would say was: ”I look forward to reviewing this and the full budget when it is released later this spring."
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Both Obama and Hillary Clinton looked at this same situation and decided that coal's decline was basically irreversible. Indeed, coal would need to decline much further and much faster if we wanted to halt climate change. So, to soften the blow, Clinton proposed a $30 billion program to help mining communities in West Virginia, Kentucky, and elsewhere to deal with the loss of coal jobs — a plan focused on job training and small-business development.

That's not necessarily the only way to help places like Appalachia. The federal government's track record on job retraining is pretty dismal, after all. And it's possible that someone devoted to the problem could come up with better ideas than Clinton's. (Conservative economist Lyman Stone has some thoughts on these lines, which include investing in things like universities and national labs in the region.)

But Trump isn't proposing alternatives. At this point, his main idea for coal country is to make unrealistic promises about jobs — and then cut the few federal programs intended to aid the region when the jobs don't materialize.
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More at the link...
 
A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
Cutting funding to the people that won you the election seems like a dumb move that people who voted for Trump probably should have predicted.

Then again, this kind of cycle is why power in the Federal Government is so cyclical. People get the idea they should vote for the GOP for terrible social reasons and then figure out they voted against their self-interest and then vote the GOP out of office. Then the cycle starts over.
 
M

Mr_Antimatter

Member
Sorry, but this is what they voted for. They knew what it meant when they pulled that R lever, and they will just have to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and deal with it.

Seriously though, it's a major dick move all around, but expected.
 
G

Glix

Member
Lets no gloss over that the health care plan majorly fucks over Black Lung victims as well.

They reap what they sow, sadly.
 
T

tuffy

Member
"What gives" is that Trump doesn't give a single fuck about anybody but himself, including the gullible suckers that voted for him in the first place.
 
B

BoogieWoogie

Banned
Why it's almost as if he was lying to you the entire time and logical people were screaming that very fact at you for the better part of 2016!
 
E

Evil Monkey DTT

Banned
As someone who lives wv.... We are about to see an education on how bad shit can get. Good people are going to suffer, my mother is literally going to lose her meals on wheels which will kill her. Any youth here including myself won't stay, and she is about to be a even larger dumpster fire.
 
A

AlexMogil

Member
He would have won WV even if he would have been honest and said "I think you're all morons, and you're only worth 5 electoral votes, so fuck off."

It's a shame. WV has good people in it who are going to be just lost.
 
Y

yanipheonu

Member
It always seemed to me it's all fun, games and fake news until the money starts talking.

Even Trump can't bullshit his way through people just not getting the money they want and need.
 
B

BigDug13

Member
I don't understand the confusion. The Republican Party favors cutting funding for domestic programs in favor of military spending. Even if it wasn't Trump, how would any other Republican have handled federal aid funding any differently?
 
B

BoogieWoogie

Banned
BigDug13 said:
I don't understand the confusion. The Republican Party favors cutting funding for domestic programs in favor of military spending. Even if it wasn't Trump, how would any other Republican have handled federal aid funding any differently?
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Any other Republican sure as shit wouldn't have gone as extreme as Trump did because they know where their bread is buttered. Donny's just a fucking idiot.
 
A

A Human Becoming

More than a Member
If I was Trump, I would create a budget to maximize helping the states that voted for me and fuck over the ones that did not. Clearly he doesn't think that carefully.
 
F

fredrancour

Member
BigDug13 said:
I don't understand the confusion. The Republican Party favors cutting funding for domestic programs in favor of military spending. Even if it wasn't Trump, how would any other Republican have handled federal aid funding any differently?
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Making impossible promises about reviving the coal industry was a unique opportunity to lie in this election because of the current state of said industry, so people are feeling extra-burned.

Also Republicans usually try to prioritize cuts in ways that less directly devastate their constituents in the short term.
 
G

GhaleonEB

Member
They elected someone who's entire business history has been shafting employees and workers, thinking he would suddenly care about them. Surprise!

I'm sympathetic to them, because they are in a genuinely hard place and were desperate. But they also got conned by an obvious con.
 
F

fredrancour

Member
GhaleonEB said:
They elected someone who's entire business history has been shafting employees and workers, thinking he would suddenly care about them. Surprise!

I'm sympathetic to them, because they are in a genuinely hard place and were desperate. But they also got conned by an obvious con.
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used car salesmen exist generation after generation because BS salesmanship can suck needy people in. He's just the ultimate used car salesman
 
A

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
I

Iolo

Member
Call me when the actual voters there are livid, not congressional representatives ("allies") from the area. Excuses will continue to be made for Trump in the meantime
 
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