Miner's Aren't Dumb... But They Have a Blind Spot

Miners deserve all Americans’ appreciation and support almost as much as our Military Vets. Miners almost single handedly gave America the power we needed to grow as much as we did last century and become the financial powerhouse we are. 

Now that we need to reduce our use of coal and move to cleaner sources of energy, we should give miners everything they need to move on, including:

1. Extended unemployment benefits - perhaps a declining amount over 5-10 years.

2. A large number of retraining facilities in their communities. Miners are easily capable to learning how to build and assemble most types of equipment. 

3. The State and Federal Governments should offer sweet deals to attract new manufacturing and assembly into the coal communities. It would be awesome to get the new energy companies to move their manufacturing facilities to the coal areas with its readily available workforce.

4. The State and Federal Governments should make sure there are Community Colleges in every coal community. Either the miners or their spouses could take advantage of them, and perhaps learn accounting, marketing, or whatever they desire.

Sidenote: I was in favor of doing similar things for tobacco farmers in North Carolina when we wanted to reduce the supply of cigarettes. I still think we should stamp out all farming of tobacco and help the farmers transition to other crops that earn them as much money.

So what’s miners' blind spot?

Most miners think electing Republicans is in their best interests. However, they are wrong. When the GOP says they want to reduce taxes and the size of government, the result will be the government will not have enough money, or staff, to do anything. So despite the encouraging words you hear from the GOP, they have no desire to spend money to help anyone. They believe it’s everyone for themselves.

Democrats (like me) are not only willing to pay more taxes to help miners, we think it’s our duty!