I don't know and neither do you. I guess there wer

I don't know and neither do you. I guess there weren't quite enough auto manufacturing jobs to make up for the losses in other manufacturing.

Blaming it all on NAFTA overlooks larger trends that were underway before NAFTA....automation....and intractable, hard scrabble, inter-generational poverty that has characterized that part of the country for decades. Education also lags the rest of the country.

Of the two candidates only Clinton has concrete proposals for the region. I may have missed Trump's plan, I'm sure you'll enlighten me.

Quote:

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Clinton's plan draws from several ideas already circulating on Capitol Hill, such as bipartisan pension-protection legislation from West Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania senators to protect coal miner pensions.

Clinton would expand that to include retirees from power plants or transportation companies who lose benefits due to a coal market-related bankruptcy. And she endorses “sweeping reforms” proposed by Virginia and Pennsylvania Democrats for the federal black lung benefit program.

Her plan also would create a Secure Coal Community Schools program — similar to the existing Secure Rural Schools program to offset lost revenue from a decline in Western timber sales — that would replace lost coal-industry revenue to public schools “until alternative sources of local tax revenue arise through economic growth.”

Clinton outlines goals to modernize infrastructure, repurpose mines and power plant sites, increase high-speed broadband access and expedite permitting for renewable energy projects and transmission lines. She also would offer more tax credits for low-income residents, allow companies investing in coalfield communities to avoid capital gains taxes and establish a competitive grant program.

Carbon capture and sequestration research and development would receive more support under Clinton's plan. The technology has already received substantial federal support, but remains expensive and has struggled to gain widespread adoption.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/hillary...z4Oa9RXiOV

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