Once again a coal boom time has come, blessed us with temporary good times, and then passed. The Cumberland Times News this week announced that West Virginia's economy once again started a decline.
Does trouble loom ahead for the Democratic Party in West Virginia? The State Legislature had a great opportunity to make real structural changes while unemployment dropped and tax revenues rose. Instead they changed the window dressing a little. Every year that passes sees less and less of the state enamored by old fashioned New Deal type solutions. Professor Sobel has laid out in black and white, in painful detail, how other regional states have moved well past us in development.
I doubt that the governor has much to worry about. His personal popularity can withstand an economic downturn. Governor Manchin could not make the changes on his own anyway. The Legislature held the power to do a great deal of good in the past few years and sat on its hands. Well, that's not entirely true. They did work extremely hard to try and promote table games as a way to bolster revenues. See how that worked out. What's next, promoting strip clubs to get young mothers off welfare?
The long term problem remains what it has been for the past century. West Virginia remains too dependent upon one single extractive industry for its well-being. The state needs a climate that encourages not only investment, but an entrepreneurial spirit. It is time to stop condemning the coal industry and people that have have not been alive since World War II or earlier. We can blame the party that has dominated the Legislature now for several decades. Their unwillingness or inability to steer the state towards a diversified economy that supports an independent and entrepreneurial population means that it is their time to hit the road.
No comments:
Post a Comment