Trump conned coal country: no jobs, abandons black lung patients

As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump made promises to the coal industry and the communities it supports. Trump claimed he could bring the coal industry back to its heyday. However, as President, Trump has not done hardly anything to bring back jobs to the coal industry. His first actions as President have clearly shown that he does not care about helping the coal mining communities. In fact, Trump's agenda shows a clear intent to enact policies which would severely hurt coal mining communities.

Trump deregulation will not solve anything

So far the Trump Administration has attempted to fulfill his promises of bringing back jobs to the coal industry via executive order aimed at dismantling numerous environmental standards previously set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). However, this tactic is short-sighted and is unlikely to have any long-term significant effect, according to a study from Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy.

The report reveals that Trump's deregulatory agenda does not address the main causes of coal's decline in the past few decades, which are competing demand for natural gas and renewable energy sources. Any possible positive benefits to Trump's deregulatory policies could be “overwhelmed by the impact of cheaper natural gas” with a worst-case scenario of coal consumption dropping “below levels... projected under Obama administration policies,” according to the report released in April. This blog had previously published a post about how the reality of the dynamics between natural gas and coal do not work in favor of Trump's economic thesis.

Trump budget cuts job retraining for displaced coal miners

Despite the macroeconomic outlook of the coal industry's decline, Trump is attempting to make it more difficult for current and future unemployed coal miners to be retrained with skills better-suited for today's economy. Trump's recently proposed budget would slash at least $1.13 billion from the Partnerships for Opportunity and Workforce Economic Revitalization (POWER) Initiative, which helps to train dislocated coal industry workers for occupations in-demand in the current economy, according to The Center for American Progress. The POWER initiative provided over $115.8 million in funding for coal communities in over 20 states over the past two years.

Trump's attempt to repeal Obamacare disaster for black lung patients

In addition, to making it challenging for coal miners to survive the job market during the inevitable decline of the coal industry, the Trump agenda is also threatening to make it more difficult for patients suffering from black lung disease to obtain the medical care they need to survive. Trump's staunch support of the GOP effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA), otherwise known as Obamacare, would roll back a provision within the ACA which made it drastically easier for coal miners to obtain coverage for black lung disease, according to News and Tribune.

Trump ran his election campaign on the notion that he was somehow more straightforward and honest compared to other more conventional politicians. However, despite his rhetoric, his actions show that his promises made to coal mining communities were only lies made up to gain votes. It is clear that the intention of the Trump agenda is to enact policies that would economically devastate these communities while literally leaving them to die without healthcare.

Trump budget prioritizes war over education, hurts impoverished communities

President Trump's proposed budget would drastically increase spending on the military while making dramatic cuts to numerous social services that mostly benefit impoverished communities. Now with the increasing tensions with Syria and the military actions taken by the Trump administration, the military-heavy budget may pick up some additional political support from war hawk lawmakers. Unfortunately, children from impoverished communities may suffer some of the most devastating effects due to proposed cuts to various education services, such as after-school programs.

Trump budget cuts to after-school programs hurt working families

The proposed budget would increase military spending by $54 billion while cutting $9 billion from education. Not all of the details of the cuts have been released, however $1.2 billion of those cuts would specifically hit 21^st Century Community Learning Centers (CCLC) which provide after-school and summer learning programs, according to The Center for American Progress. The cuts would put an end to these essential programs. This can be highly detrimental to working parents who rely on the programs to allow them to continue working to make ends meet while also providing their children with the extra learning needed for them to succeed in school. Approximately 80 percent of parents who participated in the after-school services claim that the programs helped them maintain their employment. Over 1.6 million students are currently attending the after-school programs.

Trump's alternative facts on after-school programs

Despite these obvious benefits for working families, the Trump administration still claims that there are no benefits to maintaining these programs. The budget justifies these cuts by asserting that there is no “strong evidence” of meeting the objectives of the programs, such as “improving student achievement.” However, Trump is flat-out wrong and ignores large amounts of evidence showing that these programs do make significant progress on their objectives.

An evaluation of high-quality after-school programs, which included CCLC programs, in low-income elementary and middle schools found that regular participation among the 3,000 students evaluated, resulted in considerable improvements in math test scores as well as work habits. The study also showed that after-school programs reduced behavioral problems, according to a fact sheet published by the Afterschool Alliance. Evaluations conducted on CCLC programs in California, Washington and Wisconsin showed improvements for students in many areas, including test scores, attendance, grades, class participation and motivation.

Be sure to contact your local congresspersons and senators and tell them you oppose these cuts to critical public education services, such as the CCLC. Now with the worsening Syria crisis, it is important voters do not allow lawmakers to sneak these devastating cuts under the cover of patriotic war drums. You can automatically connect to your representatives via various means at Phone2Action.