THE MOST MISERABLE STATE
The report on the well-being of West Virginians is terrible again this year. The state ranks dead last.
The coal and power generation industry (most recently Longview / GenPower and others) have been exploiting and impoverishing West Virginians for many decades. Many billions of potential coal and energy tax dollars simply walk away. And all the while, the coal industry sings ad nauseum: “Coal is West Virginia!” and adds: “Be Proud.”
What else can the coal industry sing? “Coal is killing you!” “Go ahead and despair.” “Your losses are our profits!” Coal and power generation and poverty and deadly pollution go hand-in-hand. Coal and poverty are practically synonymous – thus the need for the constant coal propaganda: “Coal is West Virginia!” Do they realize what they are singing? Coal proclaims itself king of the dead last – in well-being – the state of West Virginia. Be proud, Coal. No one knows how to better strip down a state than you.
Meanwhile the Longview / GenPower plant is ripping off Monongalia County of about half the tax dollars it would have to pay, if it had not been exempted from those payments by the Monongalia County Commission, and presumably the Board of Education, a few years ago. That’s multi-millions in county funds every few years.
It’s not as if West Virginia can afford the coal and power generation industries to not pay their fair share – not that these industries have ever remotely come close to paying their fair share. These parasitic and lethal industries are a big part of the reason that West Virginia is as dirt poor and desperate as it is compared to the rest of the country, and for that matter compared to the rest of the industrialized world:
As reported by 24/7 Wall Street, again this year West Virginia is dead last in well-being: Read the rest of this entry »
New Woodburn Community School 