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Payback
Dedicated to the Fools, Racists, and Ignorant
People who vote for the GOP and trump or don't vote because they claim it is not important
oct 15, 2019
400 years and they have learned nothing
8 disturbing trends that reveal the South’s battered psyche
From Salon: Across red-state America, especially in the Deep South, the latest statistics show that the cycle of poverty, in its many manifestations, is unchanged and holding firm. Why is this? It’s easy to say this is how Republicans like to run states—cutting budgets, not raising the minimum wage, opposing labor unions. They let the poor and working class stew in their hardscrabble juices. Meanwhile, they distract voters by accusing liberals of waging war on the few sources of personal power in Southerners’ difficult lives: their religious beliefs and owning guns. But go back several decades when segregationist Democrats ruled; for the most part, they weren’t very different from today’s Republicans.
So what is it that perpetuates decades of poverty in the Deep South? What follows are eight bundles of statistics tracking this latest cycle of poverty. Could it be that people who historically have been treated badly, who have little money in their pockets but look to the sky and pray, expect less from others—including the public and private sector? Does that explain why red-staters cling to God, gun ownership and a “leave-me-alone” ferocity?
They expect politicians to defend their values and their pride and little more?
What’s going on here isn’t entirely political, even if it is used by red-state Republicans in their personal drive for power and influence. Look at what the following statistics reveal about red-staters trapped in deep cycles of poverty. What is the thread that connects lousy governance, bad health, evangelical religion and firearms fervor?
1. Southern states have the most poor people.
2. Deep South states have no minimum wage.
3. Deep South has lowest economic mobility.
4. South has lowest per capita spending by state government.
5. Forget about decent preventative healthcare.
6. One result: people self-medicate in response.
7. Forget the lottery, just pray to Jesus.
8. And hold onto that gun!
So what is it that perpetuates decades of poverty in the Deep South? What follows are eight bundles of statistics tracking this latest cycle of poverty. Could it be that people who historically have been treated badly, who have little money in their pockets but look to the sky and pray, expect less from others—including the public and private sector? Does that explain why red-staters cling to God, gun ownership and a “leave-me-alone” ferocity?
They expect politicians to defend their values and their pride and little more?
What’s going on here isn’t entirely political, even if it is used by red-state Republicans in their personal drive for power and influence. Look at what the following statistics reveal about red-staters trapped in deep cycles of poverty. What is the thread that connects lousy governance, bad health, evangelical religion and firearms fervor?
1. Southern states have the most poor people.
2. Deep South states have no minimum wage.
3. Deep South has lowest economic mobility.
4. South has lowest per capita spending by state government.
5. Forget about decent preventative healthcare.
6. One result: people self-medicate in response.
7. Forget the lottery, just pray to Jesus.
8. And hold onto that gun!
payback headlines - how you are screwed!!
*The Midwest’s economy is ‘faltering’ — just over a year before Trump faces re-election: Wall Street Journal(ARTICLE BELOW)
*President Trump: I’m One of the Workers You Lied To
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*China agriculture delegation scraps U.S. farm visit to Montana
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION PLANS TO GUT FOOD STAMPS, HITTING RED STATES HARDEST
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*GOP Senators Who Backed Trump’s Emergency Declaration Lose Military Funding
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Trump’s crazed tweets are literally hurting your 401(k): Bank of America
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*'It's devastating'. End of GM in Ohio town as Trump fails to bring back midwest jobs
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Trump intervention triggered EPA's surprise biofuel waiver decision: sources
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*U.S. Farmers Stung by Tariffs Now Face a $3.5 Billion Corn Loss
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*‘We were betrayed!’ Iraqi Christian who backed Trump in 2016 furious after president deports her uncle(ARTICLE BELOW)
*‘We’re not doing great’: Furious farmers unleash on Trump’s Ag Secretary after he tells joke about whining farmers(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Trump tariff war victim: Minnesota farmer auctions off what little he has to keep century-old family farm(ARTICLE BELOW)
*American farmer: Trump trade war ‘took away all our markets’
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Trump shafted family farmers to give trade war bailouts to huge corporate farms instead: report
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*‘Don’t sell your homes – those plants are not closing’: Trump told voters who are now losing their jobs(ARTICLE BELOW)
*As the coal industry falls apart, miners face losing their pensions
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Trump's tariffs trip up the all-American RV industry
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Fiscal collapse of coal towns all but certain, new research shows
(ARTICLE BELOW)
*A major American steelmaker has lost 70% of its market value since Trump slapped steep tariffs on the metal last year(ARTICLE BELOW)
*Millions to lose benefits under Trump’s proposal to change how poverty is defined, new study shows(ARTICLE BELOW)
PAYBACK FUNNIES(at the end)
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GREEN PARTY FucK YOU! - THIS IS WHAT TRUMP HAS WROUGHT...SAME AS HILLARY
Cattledog - demo. underground
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29 rules have been overturned
Flood building standards Proposed ban on a potentially harmful pesticide Freeze on new coal leases on public lands Methane reporting requirement Anti-dumping rule for coal companies Decision on Keystone XL pipeline Decision on Dakota Access pipeline Third-party settlement funds Offshore drilling ban in the Atlantic and Arctic Ban on seismic air gun testing in the Atlantic Northern Bering Sea climate resilience plan Royalty regulations for oil, gas and coal Inclusion of greenhouse gas emissions in environmental reviews Permit-issuing process for new infrastructure projects Green Climate Fund contributions Mining restrictions in Bristol Bay, Alaska Endangered species listings Hunting ban on wolves and grizzly bears in Alaska Protections for whales and sea turtles Reusable water bottles rule for national parks National parks climate order Environmental mitigation for federal projects Calculation for “social cost” of carbon Planning rule for public lands Copper filter cake listing as hazardous waste Mine cleanup rule Sewage treatment pollution regulations Ban on use of lead ammunition on federal lands Restrictions on fishing |
24 rollbacks are in progress
Clean Power Plan Paris climate agreement Wetland and tributary protections Car and truck fuel-efficiency standards Status of 10 national monuments Status of 12 marine areas Limits on toxic discharge from power plants Coal ash discharge regulations Emissions standards for new, modified and reconstructed power plants Emissions rules for power plant start-up and shutdown Sage grouse habitat protections Fracking regulations on public lands Regulations on oil and gas drilling in some national parks Oil rig safety regulations Regulations for offshore oil and gas exploration by floating vessels Drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge Hunting method regulations in Alaska Requirement for tracking emissions on federal highways Emissions standards for trailers and glider kits Limits on methane emissions on public lands Permitting process for air-polluting plants Offshore oil and gas leasing Use of birds in subsistence handicrafts Coal dust rule |
7 rollbacks are in limbo
Methane emission limits at new oil and gas wells
Limits on landfill emissions
Mercury emission limits for power plants
Hazardous chemical facility regulations
Groundwater protections for uranium mines
Efficiency standards for federal buildings
Rule helping consumers buy fuel-efficient tires
Source:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/05/climate/trump-environment-rules-reversed.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur
Methane emission limits at new oil and gas wells
Limits on landfill emissions
Mercury emission limits for power plants
Hazardous chemical facility regulations
Groundwater protections for uranium mines
Efficiency standards for federal buildings
Rule helping consumers buy fuel-efficient tires
Source:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/10/05/climate/trump-environment-rules-reversed.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur
america's reward for voting for republicans!!!
The True Cost of Voodoo Economics
The Reagan-Bush Debt is how much of the national debt of the United States is attributable to the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and
the Republican fiscal policy of Borrow-And-Spend.
As of Tuesday, October 01, 2019 at 7:41:33AM PT,
The Current Republican Debt is:
$14,314,809,100,523.00
which means that in a total of 22 years,
these four presidents have led to the creation of
93.87%
of the entire national debt
in only 9.0535% of the 243 years of the existence of the United States of America.
@ReaganBushDebt.org
they still support trump, suckers!!!
The Midwest’s economy is ‘faltering’ — just over a year before Trump faces re-election: Wall Street Journal
October 1, 2019
By Brad Reed - raw story
While impeachment is the most immediate danger facing President Donald Trump, the state of the economy is also looking increasingly worrisome.
The Wall Street Journal reports that President Donald Trump’s trade war is still hammering the economy in the Midwestern United States, as both agricultural and manufacturing industries are feeling the pinch from tariffs imposed as retaliatory measures by China.
“Regional economic indicators suggest that the financial health of the Midwest is waning,” reports the Journal. “One heartbeat of the Midwestern economy, farming, has been under serious pressure throughout the spring and summer. Agricultural exports to China have plummeted over the past two years, particularly soybeans.”
The result of this is that farmers’ loan delinquencies and bankruptcies are rising heading just a little over a year before the president is up for reelection next year.
And the economic pain being felt by farmers is now spreading out to other sectors of the Midwestern economy as well.
“The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago tracks nonfarm business activity in five states—Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin—through its Midwest Economy Index. The index was in negative territory for the fifth straight month in August, the Chicago Fed said Monday,” WSJ reports. “Readings below zero indicate that growth is less than the historical average rate. The July reading, at minus 0.37, was the worst since early 2010.”
Read the whole report here.
The Wall Street Journal reports that President Donald Trump’s trade war is still hammering the economy in the Midwestern United States, as both agricultural and manufacturing industries are feeling the pinch from tariffs imposed as retaliatory measures by China.
“Regional economic indicators suggest that the financial health of the Midwest is waning,” reports the Journal. “One heartbeat of the Midwestern economy, farming, has been under serious pressure throughout the spring and summer. Agricultural exports to China have plummeted over the past two years, particularly soybeans.”
The result of this is that farmers’ loan delinquencies and bankruptcies are rising heading just a little over a year before the president is up for reelection next year.
And the economic pain being felt by farmers is now spreading out to other sectors of the Midwestern economy as well.
“The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago tracks nonfarm business activity in five states—Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin—through its Midwest Economy Index. The index was in negative territory for the fifth straight month in August, the Chicago Fed said Monday,” WSJ reports. “Readings below zero indicate that growth is less than the historical average rate. The July reading, at minus 0.37, was the worst since early 2010.”
Read the whole report here.
President Trump: I’m One of the Workers You Lied To
by Tracey Aikman | the smirking chimp
September 22, 2019 - 5:16am
My entire working life has been dictated by offshoring. I’ve spent my career jumping from one factory closing to another.
When President Trump was elected, he said: “Companies are not going to leave the United States anymore without consequences.” His promises ring hollow to me after I got my latest layoff notice.
My first job out of high school was at a factory owned by United Technologies in Wabash, Indiana. I showed up to work in March 1991 and a sign on the door read: “Moved to Mexico.” My mother, who worked for a sister factory, also lost her job when her factory was sent south of the border.
I eventually got a union job at Chrysler in Kokomo, Indiana, which allowed me to give my family a middle-class life and build our dream house on five acres of land. In 2008, I got laid off. I lost my house and had to start over financially.
When I got my job at Schneider Electric’s “Square D” plant in Peru, Indiana five years ago, making electrical boxes and equipment, I hoped that this job would sustain me until I was ready to retire.
Unfortunately, the multinational corporation that owns our plant announced this summer that they would be moving our work to Mexico and other plants. Once our plant closes, all of Schneider Electric’s North American factories will be non-union.
Now I’m facing another layoff, even though our Peru plant was profitable. In fact, the same week I was laid off, Schneider Electric announced profits of $2.2 billion for the first half of 2019.
I’m not alone. Workers across the Midwest are suffering the same fate. And President Trump continues to fail us. Instead of punishing companies like Schneider Electric, he has rewarded them with $120 million in federal contracts and a massive tax break. The closure of my factory is sad proof that Trump’s lies have consequences.
Trump’s broken promises have become a broken record destroying our communities, even though here in Miami County, we gave him the vast majority of our votes in 2016.
Right now, Our Revolution, a political advocacy organization inspired by Sen. Bernie Sander’s historic presidential run in 2016, is helping to organize a miracle effort to save our plant. Joined by workers from the shuttered GM plant in Lordstown, Ohio and workers from the Carrier plant in Indianapolis, we are calling on Trump to sign an executive order that would prevent taxpayer dollars from going to companies that are shipping American jobs overseas.
With the next round of layoffs scheduled for September 27, there is no time to waste.
We have one request for President Trump: Use the power of the government over federal contracts to stop our jobs from leaving the United States. Show us that you mean what you said when you promised to be a workers’ champion.
We need your help now — and we’ll remember if we don’t get it.
When President Trump was elected, he said: “Companies are not going to leave the United States anymore without consequences.” His promises ring hollow to me after I got my latest layoff notice.
My first job out of high school was at a factory owned by United Technologies in Wabash, Indiana. I showed up to work in March 1991 and a sign on the door read: “Moved to Mexico.” My mother, who worked for a sister factory, also lost her job when her factory was sent south of the border.
I eventually got a union job at Chrysler in Kokomo, Indiana, which allowed me to give my family a middle-class life and build our dream house on five acres of land. In 2008, I got laid off. I lost my house and had to start over financially.
When I got my job at Schneider Electric’s “Square D” plant in Peru, Indiana five years ago, making electrical boxes and equipment, I hoped that this job would sustain me until I was ready to retire.
Unfortunately, the multinational corporation that owns our plant announced this summer that they would be moving our work to Mexico and other plants. Once our plant closes, all of Schneider Electric’s North American factories will be non-union.
Now I’m facing another layoff, even though our Peru plant was profitable. In fact, the same week I was laid off, Schneider Electric announced profits of $2.2 billion for the first half of 2019.
I’m not alone. Workers across the Midwest are suffering the same fate. And President Trump continues to fail us. Instead of punishing companies like Schneider Electric, he has rewarded them with $120 million in federal contracts and a massive tax break. The closure of my factory is sad proof that Trump’s lies have consequences.
Trump’s broken promises have become a broken record destroying our communities, even though here in Miami County, we gave him the vast majority of our votes in 2016.
Right now, Our Revolution, a political advocacy organization inspired by Sen. Bernie Sander’s historic presidential run in 2016, is helping to organize a miracle effort to save our plant. Joined by workers from the shuttered GM plant in Lordstown, Ohio and workers from the Carrier plant in Indianapolis, we are calling on Trump to sign an executive order that would prevent taxpayer dollars from going to companies that are shipping American jobs overseas.
With the next round of layoffs scheduled for September 27, there is no time to waste.
We have one request for President Trump: Use the power of the government over federal contracts to stop our jobs from leaving the United States. Show us that you mean what you said when you promised to be a workers’ champion.
We need your help now — and we’ll remember if we don’t get it.
hey farmers, the idiot you elected who started the trade war is bankrupting you!!!
China agriculture delegation scraps U.S. farm visit to Montana
Karl Plume - reuters
SEPTEMBER 20, 2019
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Chinese agriculture officials who were due to visit U.S. farm states next week have canceled their trip to Montana as the officials will return to China sooner than originally scheduled, the Montana Farm Bureau told Reuters on Friday.
The cancellation came as U.S.-Chinese trade talks were held in Washington and U.S. President Donald Trump said he wanted a complete trade deal with the Asian nation, not just an agreement for China to buy more U.S. agricultural goods.
It was not immediately clear if visits to other U.S. farm areas were also canceled.
A Chinese Embassy official informed the Montana Farm Bureau that the delegation is returning to China sooner than expected so its goodwill visit, expected as early as Monday, was canceled, said Nicole Rolf, Montana Farm Bureau director of national affairs.
The Chinese Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The trip had been scheduled for next week as part of an effort to build goodwill during trade negotiations, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue told reporters on Thursday.
CNBC reported on Thursday that the group was slated to visit Montana and Nebraska.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture and state officials in Nebraska did not immediately respond to request for comment.
The cancellation came as U.S.-Chinese trade talks were held in Washington and U.S. President Donald Trump said he wanted a complete trade deal with the Asian nation, not just an agreement for China to buy more U.S. agricultural goods.
It was not immediately clear if visits to other U.S. farm areas were also canceled.
A Chinese Embassy official informed the Montana Farm Bureau that the delegation is returning to China sooner than expected so its goodwill visit, expected as early as Monday, was canceled, said Nicole Rolf, Montana Farm Bureau director of national affairs.
The Chinese Embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The trip had been scheduled for next week as part of an effort to build goodwill during trade negotiations, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue told reporters on Thursday.
CNBC reported on Thursday that the group was slated to visit Montana and Nebraska.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture and state officials in Nebraska did not immediately respond to request for comment.
The Trump administration plans to gut food stamps, hitting red states hardest
3.6 million Americans will lose food stamps under a regulatory maneuver nobody in Congress likes. 1.9 million of them live in Trump country.
ALAN PYKE - thinkprogress
SEP 5, 2019, 8:00 AM
President Donald Trump’s latest attack on working families will hit especially hard in the states that voted for him: More than half of the people who are set to lose access to food stamps under regulations proposed this summer live in states that went for Trump in 2016.
One in every twelve people who receives food stamps nationwide will lose them under the policy — some 3.6 million people, according to new analysis by Mathematica, the private policy analysis firm the Department of Agriculture (USDA) has relied upon for the past 40 years.
“I was surprised by the extent of the impact in some of the southern states, such as Texas,” Mathematica senior research programmer Sarah Lauffer said. The impact was always going to be severe in states that apply the current rules in the most generous fashion, but southern states have generally not extended their eligibility lines quite as far. Despite that, Lauffer said, her team found “34% of elderly Texans receiving benefits will lose them through this rule.”
Almost 400,000 people in Texas currently receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits would lose them. Another 328,000 in Florida, 200,000 in New York, 97,000 in Georgia, and 176,000 in Washington state face cuts, to name just a few standouts.
Almost one in five Wisconsin households currently getting help with their groceries will lose the benefit, as well as 16% of such households in Oregon, Nevada, Iowa, and Delaware. Two of every 13 SNAP households in Minnesota and Texas will have to find food money elsewhere.
The administration plans to slash benefits by ending a popular, bipartisan policy known as broad-based categorical eligibility (BBCE). That policy protects low-wage workers from a quirk of poverty-assistance law known as the “benefits cliff,” whereby earning or saving slightly too much money can trigger a low-income family’s eviction from public assistance programs.
Ending the expanded eligibility system for SNAP will also boot roughly half a million kids out of free school meal programs nationwide. The administration has insisted those kids could all hop right back in by filling out application forms currently mooted by the BBCE system, but experts have warned it doesn’t necessarily work that way.
The administration forecasts a $10 billion total draw-down in SNAP spending over the next five years once the policy is enacted. It didn’t estimate the long-term costs of making families hungrier and more desperate.
“Allowing families whose gross income is a little over the poverty level to receive food assistance helps make sure that both the kids and adults in the family are able to eat,” said Lisa Davis, Senior Vice President at the poverty policy center No Kid Hungry. “Children that don’t get the nutrition that they need end up with worse health-care outcomes, worse physical and cognitive development, they have poorer outcomes in school, they find it harder to concentrate, they don’t do as well on tests, there are more behavioral issues.”
The administration has always known it would be yanking food assistance away from millions. Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials said as much when they announced the new regulations in August.
“It doesn’t make any sense to us,” Food Research Action Center’s Ellen Vollinger said. “Taking food away from people is just going to make their food security situation worse, make them hungrier. It will have a negative effect on the economy at a time when some economists are warning us we would be in for another downturn.”
Non-profit groups across the country are dutifully filing public comments criticizing the rule and pointing out all the ways the USDA appears to have ignored evidence, congressional intent, and practical facts in issuing its proposal. The 60-day window for such comments closes later in the fall, and the administration will likely face legal challenges if it attempts to handle the objections with a pro-forma sweep of the hand.
But USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue has been determined to kill BBCE for months, ever since Congress decided to retain the policy in last year’s Farm Bill. There’s a strong chance the cut – in some form – will have kicked in by this time next year.
These families earn a little more than the statutory maximum income for SNAP eligibility. But that doesn’t mean they can afford to see even the modest food assistance they currently receive disappear from their monthly budgets.
“They’re making trade-offs between what bills to pay. Do they pay the rent, or get a car fixed so they can keep going to work, or keep the lights on?” Davis said. “We see those families cut back on food first. [BBCE] helps make sure that both the kids and adults in the family are able to eat.”
Trump’s policies hit barely-red states hardest
As Thursday’s state-level figures suggest, the categorical eligibility smackdown is going to hit especially hard in four states where very narrow Trump wins in 2016 tilted the electoral college irrevocably in his favor.
Trump won Wisconsin by less than 23,000 votes last time. He’ll have dumped 118,000 Wisconsin residents off of food stamps by Election Day if the rule goes through as planned.
One in every nine people currently benefiting from SNAP in Michigan will be booted under the rule – roughly 165,000 men, women, and children in total. Trump won the state by just 10,704 votes last go round.
In Pennsylvania, which Trump carried by just under 47,000 votes, his food stamps cut will dump more than five times that many people off the food-aid rolls.
The potential economic and electoral self-sabotage is particularly striking given that bipartisan majorities in Congress have repeatedly rejected this precise policy, as recently as last year. The right-wing crusade against broad-based categorical eligibility has never won a majority of Republican hearts and minds. Like the vast majority of voters who oppose cutting food stamps, the rump of GOP elected understand that BBCE is an effective investment in children’s long-term futures, local economies’ short-term health, and working families’ progress up the income ladder.
“For the most part the attacks on SNAP in recent years have not been successful. Congress has decided not to weaken snap in the 2018 farm bill, rejected multiple crazy assaults on it,” Vollinger said.
“We’re hopeful that there will be enough comment and insight brought to bear during this comment period that the administration would reconsider.”
Hunger’s ripple effect
It’s not just SNAP recipients who will feel the impact: The suffering the administration plans to inflict on working-poor families will likely also be felt in higher-income households, too, in the form of a broader economic slowdown. Consumer spending drives the whole economy. Cutting SNAP benefits means consumers have less to spend.
USDA staff issued updated estimates on the economic multiplier effects of SNAP spending earlier this summer. Though the Trump administration team’s official guesstimate is slightly lower than past multipliers, the report includes a variety of models. Each additional dollar of SNAP benefit paid out generates between $1.50 and $1.80 in total economic activity when the economy is struggling, their tables show.
The agency also broke the economic impacts out by sector, with some surprising results. The trade and transportation industry takes the largest hit from SNAP cuts. But across nine major industrial sectors the agency analyzed, the level of cuts to be imposed by the new eligibility restrictions stand to kill between 27,000 and 32,000 jobs per year over the next half-decade.
Forecasters who make their livings predicting what the economy will do next are already starting to worry that a nationwide recession looms. Multiple states have experienced recessions within their own borders in the past two years, and at least two appear to be on the brink of entering new contractions based on sudden jumps in local unemployment rates.
The national economy is still growing, but at a slower pace over the past two quarters than previously. The investor class is souring on long-term U.S. government bonds, producing the dreaded yet tediously named a “yield-curve inversion” – a phenomenon that does not guarantee a recession, but which has occurred prior to every U.S. recession in the last half-century.
The country’s manufacturing sector had been expanding for three straight years, but in August, it contracted – again, not a surefire sign of an overall downturn, but certainly an unhealthy indicator.
Presidents almost always get too much credit for good economies and too much blame for bad ones, as the financier and policy expert Barry Ritholtz noted in a recent column.
But Trump is doing more to actively poke the markets in the eye than your average president. And while the economist and investor classes grow alarmed about the sorts of sophisticated technical indicators that make the business pages, the administration is also planning to jab the working poor with a sharp stick.
Whether the SNAP cuts Trump seeks would help tip the country into a recession or not, they are certain to make life harder for people ill-positioned to absorb such a pinch. Presidents seeking re-election generally rise or fall with the health of the economy they’re credited – fairly or unfairly – with creating.
One in every twelve people who receives food stamps nationwide will lose them under the policy — some 3.6 million people, according to new analysis by Mathematica, the private policy analysis firm the Department of Agriculture (USDA) has relied upon for the past 40 years.
“I was surprised by the extent of the impact in some of the southern states, such as Texas,” Mathematica senior research programmer Sarah Lauffer said. The impact was always going to be severe in states that apply the current rules in the most generous fashion, but southern states have generally not extended their eligibility lines quite as far. Despite that, Lauffer said, her team found “34% of elderly Texans receiving benefits will lose them through this rule.”
Almost 400,000 people in Texas currently receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits would lose them. Another 328,000 in Florida, 200,000 in New York, 97,000 in Georgia, and 176,000 in Washington state face cuts, to name just a few standouts.
Almost one in five Wisconsin households currently getting help with their groceries will lose the benefit, as well as 16% of such households in Oregon, Nevada, Iowa, and Delaware. Two of every 13 SNAP households in Minnesota and Texas will have to find food money elsewhere.
The administration plans to slash benefits by ending a popular, bipartisan policy known as broad-based categorical eligibility (BBCE). That policy protects low-wage workers from a quirk of poverty-assistance law known as the “benefits cliff,” whereby earning or saving slightly too much money can trigger a low-income family’s eviction from public assistance programs.
Ending the expanded eligibility system for SNAP will also boot roughly half a million kids out of free school meal programs nationwide. The administration has insisted those kids could all hop right back in by filling out application forms currently mooted by the BBCE system, but experts have warned it doesn’t necessarily work that way.
The administration forecasts a $10 billion total draw-down in SNAP spending over the next five years once the policy is enacted. It didn’t estimate the long-term costs of making families hungrier and more desperate.
“Allowing families whose gross income is a little over the poverty level to receive food assistance helps make sure that both the kids and adults in the family are able to eat,” said Lisa Davis, Senior Vice President at the poverty policy center No Kid Hungry. “Children that don’t get the nutrition that they need end up with worse health-care outcomes, worse physical and cognitive development, they have poorer outcomes in school, they find it harder to concentrate, they don’t do as well on tests, there are more behavioral issues.”
The administration has always known it would be yanking food assistance away from millions. Department of Agriculture (USDA) officials said as much when they announced the new regulations in August.
“It doesn’t make any sense to us,” Food Research Action Center’s Ellen Vollinger said. “Taking food away from people is just going to make their food security situation worse, make them hungrier. It will have a negative effect on the economy at a time when some economists are warning us we would be in for another downturn.”
Non-profit groups across the country are dutifully filing public comments criticizing the rule and pointing out all the ways the USDA appears to have ignored evidence, congressional intent, and practical facts in issuing its proposal. The 60-day window for such comments closes later in the fall, and the administration will likely face legal challenges if it attempts to handle the objections with a pro-forma sweep of the hand.
But USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue has been determined to kill BBCE for months, ever since Congress decided to retain the policy in last year’s Farm Bill. There’s a strong chance the cut – in some form – will have kicked in by this time next year.
These families earn a little more than the statutory maximum income for SNAP eligibility. But that doesn’t mean they can afford to see even the modest food assistance they currently receive disappear from their monthly budgets.
“They’re making trade-offs between what bills to pay. Do they pay the rent, or get a car fixed so they can keep going to work, or keep the lights on?” Davis said. “We see those families cut back on food first. [BBCE] helps make sure that both the kids and adults in the family are able to eat.”
Trump’s policies hit barely-red states hardest
As Thursday’s state-level figures suggest, the categorical eligibility smackdown is going to hit especially hard in four states where very narrow Trump wins in 2016 tilted the electoral college irrevocably in his favor.
Trump won Wisconsin by less than 23,000 votes last time. He’ll have dumped 118,000 Wisconsin residents off of food stamps by Election Day if the rule goes through as planned.
One in every nine people currently benefiting from SNAP in Michigan will be booted under the rule – roughly 165,000 men, women, and children in total. Trump won the state by just 10,704 votes last go round.
In Pennsylvania, which Trump carried by just under 47,000 votes, his food stamps cut will dump more than five times that many people off the food-aid rolls.
The potential economic and electoral self-sabotage is particularly striking given that bipartisan majorities in Congress have repeatedly rejected this precise policy, as recently as last year. The right-wing crusade against broad-based categorical eligibility has never won a majority of Republican hearts and minds. Like the vast majority of voters who oppose cutting food stamps, the rump of GOP elected understand that BBCE is an effective investment in children’s long-term futures, local economies’ short-term health, and working families’ progress up the income ladder.
“For the most part the attacks on SNAP in recent years have not been successful. Congress has decided not to weaken snap in the 2018 farm bill, rejected multiple crazy assaults on it,” Vollinger said.
“We’re hopeful that there will be enough comment and insight brought to bear during this comment period that the administration would reconsider.”
Hunger’s ripple effect
It’s not just SNAP recipients who will feel the impact: The suffering the administration plans to inflict on working-poor families will likely also be felt in higher-income households, too, in the form of a broader economic slowdown. Consumer spending drives the whole economy. Cutting SNAP benefits means consumers have less to spend.
USDA staff issued updated estimates on the economic multiplier effects of SNAP spending earlier this summer. Though the Trump administration team’s official guesstimate is slightly lower than past multipliers, the report includes a variety of models. Each additional dollar of SNAP benefit paid out generates between $1.50 and $1.80 in total economic activity when the economy is struggling, their tables show.
The agency also broke the economic impacts out by sector, with some surprising results. The trade and transportation industry takes the largest hit from SNAP cuts. But across nine major industrial sectors the agency analyzed, the level of cuts to be imposed by the new eligibility restrictions stand to kill between 27,000 and 32,000 jobs per year over the next half-decade.
Forecasters who make their livings predicting what the economy will do next are already starting to worry that a nationwide recession looms. Multiple states have experienced recessions within their own borders in the past two years, and at least two appear to be on the brink of entering new contractions based on sudden jumps in local unemployment rates.
The national economy is still growing, but at a slower pace over the past two quarters than previously. The investor class is souring on long-term U.S. government bonds, producing the dreaded yet tediously named a “yield-curve inversion” – a phenomenon that does not guarantee a recession, but which has occurred prior to every U.S. recession in the last half-century.
The country’s manufacturing sector had been expanding for three straight years, but in August, it contracted – again, not a surefire sign of an overall downturn, but certainly an unhealthy indicator.
Presidents almost always get too much credit for good economies and too much blame for bad ones, as the financier and policy expert Barry Ritholtz noted in a recent column.
But Trump is doing more to actively poke the markets in the eye than your average president. And while the economist and investor classes grow alarmed about the sorts of sophisticated technical indicators that make the business pages, the administration is also planning to jab the working poor with a sharp stick.
Whether the SNAP cuts Trump seeks would help tip the country into a recession or not, they are certain to make life harder for people ill-positioned to absorb such a pinch. Presidents seeking re-election generally rise or fall with the health of the economy they’re credited – fairly or unfairly – with creating.
the kiss-ass cowards voted to take benefits from their own voters!!!
GOP Senators Who Backed Trump’s Emergency Declaration Lose Military Funding
Who could have seen this coming when the president chose to divert defense money to build his border wall?
By Igor Bobic - huff post
09/04/2019 05:57 pm ET
Republicans who supported an emergency declaration on the U.S.-Mexico border are discovering the cost of standing with President Donald Trump: millions of dollars in federal funds diverted away from planned military construction projects in their states.
Trump declared the emergency earlier this year to secure funds for a border wall after failing to persuade Congress to allocate money for its construction ― the same wall he initially promised Mexico would pay for. Only 12 Republican senators objected to the move in a Senate floor vote in March, with most of the GOP conference sticking with the president.
Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), one of those who voted in support of the declaration, announced early Wednesday that the Trump administration was diverting $30 million in funds from an Army base in her state to construction of the wall ― even though she previously received assurances from an acting secretary of defense that her state would be spared.
The Arizona Republican, who is looking at a tough reelection fight next year, downplayed the move in her statement, saying the ground transportation project at Fort Huachuca was already facing delay due to “unforeseen environmental issues” at the construction site. Those issues are expected to continue until next year, her office said.
Top Arizona Democrats, however, criticized McSally in the wake of the announcement.
Former astronaut Mark Kelly, who is running to be the Democrats’ Senate nominee next year, accused McSally of failing “her most basic responsibility to put Arizona first.” He added that the senator “told Arizonans she had protected funding for Arizona military bases, and the fact is that she didn’t keep her word.”
Other Republican senators whose states are impacted by Trump’s diversion of military construction funds to build the wall include Thom Tillis of North Carolina ($80 million), Mitch McConnell of Kentucky ($62 million), John Cornyn of Texas ($48 million), Lindsey Graham of South Carolina ($11 million) and Cory Gardner of Colorado ($8 million).
All of the above senators are also up for reelection in 2020, and they all similarly voted in support of Trump’s emergency declaration in March.
The Defense Department on Tuesday approved a total of $3.6 billion in military construction funds to build 175 miles of border wall with Mexico. Officials said 127 military construction projects ― at home and around the world ― will be impacted. A complete list can be found here.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) was among the first lawmakers on Tuesday to say his state will be affected by the funding cuts ― in his case, money diverted from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Schumer called the Trump administration’s move a “slap in the face” to the troops and accused the president of “trying to usurp Congress’s exclusive power of the purse.”
Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, both Virginia Democrats, said in a joint statement that four military projects in their state will lose $72 million in funding to Trump’s border wall. These include a cyber facility at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, a Navy ship maintenance center in Portsmouth, and projects replacing hazardous materials warehouses in Norfolk and Portsmouth.
“The well-being of American troops is the core responsibility of every commander in the military, yet the Commander-in-Chief is shirking that duty so he can advance his own political agenda,” Kaine said.
Defense Department officials have suggested that the construction of the affected military projects need not be delayed if Congress “backfills” and approves their funding again in the near future. But Democrats in the House and Senate have vowed not to do so.
“I’m not voting to appropriate the same money to the same project twice because what they are doing is illegal and I’m not an idiot,” tweeted Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs.
Trump’s emergency declaration is also facing a legal challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union, which has pledged to “block Trump’s latest effort to raid military funds for his xenophobic wall.”
Trump declared the emergency earlier this year to secure funds for a border wall after failing to persuade Congress to allocate money for its construction ― the same wall he initially promised Mexico would pay for. Only 12 Republican senators objected to the move in a Senate floor vote in March, with most of the GOP conference sticking with the president.
Sen. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), one of those who voted in support of the declaration, announced early Wednesday that the Trump administration was diverting $30 million in funds from an Army base in her state to construction of the wall ― even though she previously received assurances from an acting secretary of defense that her state would be spared.
The Arizona Republican, who is looking at a tough reelection fight next year, downplayed the move in her statement, saying the ground transportation project at Fort Huachuca was already facing delay due to “unforeseen environmental issues” at the construction site. Those issues are expected to continue until next year, her office said.
Top Arizona Democrats, however, criticized McSally in the wake of the announcement.
Former astronaut Mark Kelly, who is running to be the Democrats’ Senate nominee next year, accused McSally of failing “her most basic responsibility to put Arizona first.” He added that the senator “told Arizonans she had protected funding for Arizona military bases, and the fact is that she didn’t keep her word.”
Other Republican senators whose states are impacted by Trump’s diversion of military construction funds to build the wall include Thom Tillis of North Carolina ($80 million), Mitch McConnell of Kentucky ($62 million), John Cornyn of Texas ($48 million), Lindsey Graham of South Carolina ($11 million) and Cory Gardner of Colorado ($8 million).
All of the above senators are also up for reelection in 2020, and they all similarly voted in support of Trump’s emergency declaration in March.
The Defense Department on Tuesday approved a total of $3.6 billion in military construction funds to build 175 miles of border wall with Mexico. Officials said 127 military construction projects ― at home and around the world ― will be impacted. A complete list can be found here.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) was among the first lawmakers on Tuesday to say his state will be affected by the funding cuts ― in his case, money diverted from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Schumer called the Trump administration’s move a “slap in the face” to the troops and accused the president of “trying to usurp Congress’s exclusive power of the purse.”
Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, both Virginia Democrats, said in a joint statement that four military projects in their state will lose $72 million in funding to Trump’s border wall. These include a cyber facility at Joint Base Langley-Eustis, a Navy ship maintenance center in Portsmouth, and projects replacing hazardous materials warehouses in Norfolk and Portsmouth.
“The well-being of American troops is the core responsibility of every commander in the military, yet the Commander-in-Chief is shirking that duty so he can advance his own political agenda,” Kaine said.
Defense Department officials have suggested that the construction of the affected military projects need not be delayed if Congress “backfills” and approves their funding again in the near future. But Democrats in the House and Senate have vowed not to do so.
“I’m not voting to appropriate the same money to the same project twice because what they are doing is illegal and I’m not an idiot,” tweeted Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction and Veterans Affairs.
Trump’s emergency declaration is also facing a legal challenge from the American Civil Liberties Union, which has pledged to “block Trump’s latest effort to raid military funds for his xenophobic wall.”
Trump’s crazed tweets are literally hurting your 401(k): Bank of America
September 3, 2019
By Brad Reed - raw story
President Donald Trump last month tanked the American stock market when he sent out a series of unhinged tweets ordering American companies to come up with new places to manufacture their goods outside of China.
And according to new research from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, the president’s angry tweeting is having a negative impact on the stock market, and thus millions of Americans’ 401(k) funds.
MarketWatch reports that the bank recently “studied daily returns for the S&P 500 on days when Trump writes more than 35 tweets in a day, versus those where he types fewer than five of them.”
The difference between high-volume tweeting days and low-volume tweeting days was stark, and MarketWatch said that the researchers observed “a 9 basis point drag on days where Trump is pounding out tweets fast and furious versus a 5 basis point tailwind on days where he mostly stays off the platform.”
The Bank of America researchers say that there is no way to predict when the president will unleash an angry, market-rattling tweet storm, so they advise investors to “trade cautiously” as long as he’s in the White House.
And according to new research from Bank of America Merrill Lynch, the president’s angry tweeting is having a negative impact on the stock market, and thus millions of Americans’ 401(k) funds.
MarketWatch reports that the bank recently “studied daily returns for the S&P 500 on days when Trump writes more than 35 tweets in a day, versus those where he types fewer than five of them.”
The difference between high-volume tweeting days and low-volume tweeting days was stark, and MarketWatch said that the researchers observed “a 9 basis point drag on days where Trump is pounding out tweets fast and furious versus a 5 basis point tailwind on days where he mostly stays off the platform.”
The Bank of America researchers say that there is no way to predict when the president will unleash an angry, market-rattling tweet storm, so they advise investors to “trade cautiously” as long as he’s in the White House.
'It's devastating'. End of GM in Ohio town as Trump fails to bring back midwest jobs
Closing of Chevrolet plant is latest blow in a slow, painful decline in Lordstown – an area that has suffered more than most from the outsourcing of jobs overseas
Adam Gabbatt in Lordstown, Ohio
The Guardian
Fri 23 Aug 2019 02.00 EDT
American flags fly in front of the General Motors production plant complex in Lordstown, Ohio. Photograph: Allison Farrand/Bloomberg via Getty Images
For years, the General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio, employed 8,000 workers in the Mahoning valley.
In a rust belt region that has become synonymous with industrial decline, following the closure of its once mighty steel mills in the 1970s, the presence of the Chevrolet factory in Lordstown, and its well-paid manufacturing jobs, was particularly important.
Then, late last year, GM abruptly shut the plant. The company had already scaled back workers at the Lordstown plant, and this closure saw 1,500 workers, the last of the once huge workforce, out of their jobs.
“I think it’s devastating,” said Mark Sweetwood, the managing editor of the Vindicator newspaper, which serves the Mahoning valley.
“I think it was the last holdout of our industrial age.”
The news was just the latest blow in a slow, painful decline in this area. The rust belt was a boom area at the start of the last century, but has suffered more than most from the outsourcing of jobs overseas.
Stories of places like Lordstown abound in the midwest, and the angst and anger here is something Donald Trump was able to tap into in 2016 and that helped propel him into the White House.
The closing of the Lordstown factory came after GM said it would cut 14,700 jobs across four plants in the midwest and Canada. That announcement, in November 2018, was in stark contrast to Trump’s election pledge to bring back auto jobs to the region.
Today the plant, which looms behind a “Welcome to Lordstown” sign at the entry to the village, stands as a testament to the hollowness of that promise. In mid-August it was possible to drive into the complex, where huge parking lots – once full of new cars, but now completely empty, with brown weeds growing from cracks in the concrete – stretch as far as the eye can see.
On one side of the factory was a huge sign declaring: “Lordstown, home of the Cruze”. The plant was clad in dull yellow corrugated metal panels, adding to a sense of gloom on a grey, drizzly day.
Lordstown is a small place, essentially a village with a gas station. Warren, five miles north, is more what one would traditionally think of as a town, with a main street, businesses and an impressive 19th-century county courthouse. Away from the pretty town center, however, some of the narrow roads are lined with abandoned homes, while buildings are in varying states of disrepair.
It’s a far cry from the golden years of the 20th century, when the Mahoning valley was colloquially known as Steel valley as the steel industry boomed.
“You could walk up and get a job. All my family worked in the steel mills. Everybody worked in the steel mills. You could go to any of those places any day and get a job,” said Patricia Galgozy, who has lived in the area for over 80 years.
Galgozy is the executive director of the Turnbull Art Gallery, in downtown Warren. The Foo Fighters rock star Dave Grohl, who was born in the town, recently attended a show there, and large framed photographs of him adorn the walls. The gallery, a non-profit, was in good shape, but Galgozy has seen how the area has changed.
“I see that impact constantly,” Galgozy said. “People can’t find jobs, in my own family. You cannot find jobs around here many times. It does concern me. It makes me sad.”
Despite that, Galgozy says she is positive about the future.
“It doesn’t mean the quality of life doesn’t stay with us,” she said. “I see that we’re fighters. We step up and say what can we do.”
The Lordstown plant manufactured the Chevrolet Cruze, a cost-friendly compact car. It ceased production, with little warning, in March. Some workers were given the option to transfer to other GM plants, either by commuting or leaving the Mahoning valley entirely.
There is a chance that people could be employed at the factory again, with Workhorse, a small company which manufactures “high performance battery-electric vehicles”, linked with buying the Lordstown plant. But Workhorse is beset by its own problems. The company recorded sales of just $6,000 in the second quarter of this year and lost $36.9m.
The consequences of the GM closure are serious. Cleveland State University’s Center for Economic Development estimates that the plant shutting down will have a negative impact of $8bn in the region. It doesn’t help that other big employers have also recently left the area.
“We also lost Allegiance Airlines in 2018. So we lost our airport … and the hospital shut down in 2018 as well,” Sweetwood said.
For longtime residents, the end of the GM era is all too familiar. When the US steel industry collapsed in the late 1970s, the area was decimated. As mills closed in nearby Youngstown and elsewhere, people left the area. The population of Youngstown has halved since 1970, while Warren has lost almost a third of its residents.
“The impact is going to hurt everybody in the community, little by little,” said Al Tate, an 86-year-old who sells fruit and vegetables at the Warren farmer’s market.
Three of Tate’s brothers lost their jobs when the mills closed in the late 1970s. Two of them left to find work, and never returned.
“Others did the best they can, trying to make it,” Tate said. He said people who have lost their jobs at GM now face difficult choices.
“They’re hurt now and they’re going to hurt worse later after their [unemployment] benefits stop,” Tate said.
“If you ain’t got nothing coming in, you’ve got nothing to spend. If you’ve never had to live week-to-week, from month-to-month, it’s hard to understand.”
In a rust belt region that has become synonymous with industrial decline, following the closure of its once mighty steel mills in the 1970s, the presence of the Chevrolet factory in Lordstown, and its well-paid manufacturing jobs, was particularly important.
Then, late last year, GM abruptly shut the plant. The company had already scaled back workers at the Lordstown plant, and this closure saw 1,500 workers, the last of the once huge workforce, out of their jobs.
“I think it’s devastating,” said Mark Sweetwood, the managing editor of the Vindicator newspaper, which serves the Mahoning valley.
“I think it was the last holdout of our industrial age.”
The news was just the latest blow in a slow, painful decline in this area. The rust belt was a boom area at the start of the last century, but has suffered more than most from the outsourcing of jobs overseas.
Stories of places like Lordstown abound in the midwest, and the angst and anger here is something Donald Trump was able to tap into in 2016 and that helped propel him into the White House.
The closing of the Lordstown factory came after GM said it would cut 14,700 jobs across four plants in the midwest and Canada. That announcement, in November 2018, was in stark contrast to Trump’s election pledge to bring back auto jobs to the region.
Today the plant, which looms behind a “Welcome to Lordstown” sign at the entry to the village, stands as a testament to the hollowness of that promise. In mid-August it was possible to drive into the complex, where huge parking lots – once full of new cars, but now completely empty, with brown weeds growing from cracks in the concrete – stretch as far as the eye can see.
On one side of the factory was a huge sign declaring: “Lordstown, home of the Cruze”. The plant was clad in dull yellow corrugated metal panels, adding to a sense of gloom on a grey, drizzly day.
Lordstown is a small place, essentially a village with a gas station. Warren, five miles north, is more what one would traditionally think of as a town, with a main street, businesses and an impressive 19th-century county courthouse. Away from the pretty town center, however, some of the narrow roads are lined with abandoned homes, while buildings are in varying states of disrepair.
It’s a far cry from the golden years of the 20th century, when the Mahoning valley was colloquially known as Steel valley as the steel industry boomed.
“You could walk up and get a job. All my family worked in the steel mills. Everybody worked in the steel mills. You could go to any of those places any day and get a job,” said Patricia Galgozy, who has lived in the area for over 80 years.
Galgozy is the executive director of the Turnbull Art Gallery, in downtown Warren. The Foo Fighters rock star Dave Grohl, who was born in the town, recently attended a show there, and large framed photographs of him adorn the walls. The gallery, a non-profit, was in good shape, but Galgozy has seen how the area has changed.
“I see that impact constantly,” Galgozy said. “People can’t find jobs, in my own family. You cannot find jobs around here many times. It does concern me. It makes me sad.”
Despite that, Galgozy says she is positive about the future.
“It doesn’t mean the quality of life doesn’t stay with us,” she said. “I see that we’re fighters. We step up and say what can we do.”
The Lordstown plant manufactured the Chevrolet Cruze, a cost-friendly compact car. It ceased production, with little warning, in March. Some workers were given the option to transfer to other GM plants, either by commuting or leaving the Mahoning valley entirely.
There is a chance that people could be employed at the factory again, with Workhorse, a small company which manufactures “high performance battery-electric vehicles”, linked with buying the Lordstown plant. But Workhorse is beset by its own problems. The company recorded sales of just $6,000 in the second quarter of this year and lost $36.9m.
The consequences of the GM closure are serious. Cleveland State University’s Center for Economic Development estimates that the plant shutting down will have a negative impact of $8bn in the region. It doesn’t help that other big employers have also recently left the area.
“We also lost Allegiance Airlines in 2018. So we lost our airport … and the hospital shut down in 2018 as well,” Sweetwood said.
For longtime residents, the end of the GM era is all too familiar. When the US steel industry collapsed in the late 1970s, the area was decimated. As mills closed in nearby Youngstown and elsewhere, people left the area. The population of Youngstown has halved since 1970, while Warren has lost almost a third of its residents.
“The impact is going to hurt everybody in the community, little by little,” said Al Tate, an 86-year-old who sells fruit and vegetables at the Warren farmer’s market.
Three of Tate’s brothers lost their jobs when the mills closed in the late 1970s. Two of them left to find work, and never returned.
“Others did the best they can, trying to make it,” Tate said. He said people who have lost their jobs at GM now face difficult choices.
“They’re hurt now and they’re going to hurt worse later after their [unemployment] benefits stop,” Tate said.
“If you ain’t got nothing coming in, you’ve got nothing to spend. If you’ve never had to live week-to-week, from month-to-month, it’s hard to understand.”
Iowa corn growers, you got fucked again!!!
But they are stupid and will vote to reelect him!!!
Trump intervention triggered EPA's surprise biofuel waiver decision: sources
Humeyra Pamuk - Reuters
AUGUST 16, 2019 / 4:06 AM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A phone call from U.S. President Donald Trump last week ended a nearly two-month-long review of the nation’s biofuels program, three sources familiar with the matter said, with the White House siding in favor of oil refiners over corn growers.
Trump gave Andrew Wheeler, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the green light for the regulator to announce it had granted 31 small refinery exemptions out of the 40 applications, saying he wanted the issue off his desk, the sources said.
Trump’s call triggered a flurry of action within the EPA, leading up to a surprise Friday afternoon announcement, after weeks of negotiations between U.S. government agencies failed to make progress in addressing farmers’ concerns.
“The president has heard from all sides and in the end he has had enough of it. He called Wheeler and gave him the green light,” a source familiar with knowledge of the matter said.
The White House has sought to make changes to the nation’s biofuels laws since the beginning of Trump’s administration in early 2017, but found themselves caught between the powerful oil and corn lobbies, both of whom have allies in Washington in Trump’s Republican Party.
The debate underscores the rising political importance of the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard, a more than a decade-old federal policy that requires refineries to blend corn-based ethanol into their gasoline or buy credits from those that do.
Since Trump took office, the EPA has more than quadrupled the number of waivers it has granted to refineries, including some operated by giants Exxon Mobil and Chevron Corp, saving the oil industry hundreds of millions of dollars, but enraging farmers who claim the exemptions threaten demand for one of their staple products.
Refiners dismiss the argument, saying ethanol demand has not been affected.
The White House declined to comment for this story.
The EPA referred Reuters to an Aug. 9 press release on small refinery waivers in which it repeated the criteria on how to qualify for an exemption.
Trump had ordered the revamp of the waiver program in June, after hearing from angry farmers during a trip to Iowa, the nation’s top ethanol producing state. Even though the corn lobby seemed to have the upper hand in early talks, the oil industry’s efforts eventually gained more traction, industry sources have told Reuters.
Iowa is a swing state that Trump carried in 2016 and is potentially crucial for his re-election efforts next year. Farmers in the state have also chafed under Trump’s trade war with China that has sapped demand for agriculture products.
Farmers slammed last Friday’s decision, saying the Trump administration was bailing out the oil industry at a time when U.S. farmers were suffering due to his trade war with China. The refining industry welcomed the move, saying the waivers are lawful and help shield small refiners from the burdensome cost of compliance with RFS.
Trump gave Andrew Wheeler, head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the green light for the regulator to announce it had granted 31 small refinery exemptions out of the 40 applications, saying he wanted the issue off his desk, the sources said.
Trump’s call triggered a flurry of action within the EPA, leading up to a surprise Friday afternoon announcement, after weeks of negotiations between U.S. government agencies failed to make progress in addressing farmers’ concerns.
“The president has heard from all sides and in the end he has had enough of it. He called Wheeler and gave him the green light,” a source familiar with knowledge of the matter said.
The White House has sought to make changes to the nation’s biofuels laws since the beginning of Trump’s administration in early 2017, but found themselves caught between the powerful oil and corn lobbies, both of whom have allies in Washington in Trump’s Republican Party.
The debate underscores the rising political importance of the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard, a more than a decade-old federal policy that requires refineries to blend corn-based ethanol into their gasoline or buy credits from those that do.
Since Trump took office, the EPA has more than quadrupled the number of waivers it has granted to refineries, including some operated by giants Exxon Mobil and Chevron Corp, saving the oil industry hundreds of millions of dollars, but enraging farmers who claim the exemptions threaten demand for one of their staple products.
Refiners dismiss the argument, saying ethanol demand has not been affected.
The White House declined to comment for this story.
The EPA referred Reuters to an Aug. 9 press release on small refinery waivers in which it repeated the criteria on how to qualify for an exemption.
Trump had ordered the revamp of the waiver program in June, after hearing from angry farmers during a trip to Iowa, the nation’s top ethanol producing state. Even though the corn lobby seemed to have the upper hand in early talks, the oil industry’s efforts eventually gained more traction, industry sources have told Reuters.
Iowa is a swing state that Trump carried in 2016 and is potentially crucial for his re-election efforts next year. Farmers in the state have also chafed under Trump’s trade war with China that has sapped demand for agriculture products.
Farmers slammed last Friday’s decision, saying the Trump administration was bailing out the oil industry at a time when U.S. farmers were suffering due to his trade war with China. The refining industry welcomed the move, saying the waivers are lawful and help shield small refiners from the burdensome cost of compliance with RFS.
U.S. Farmers Stung by Tariffs Now Face a $3.5 Billion Corn Loss
By Isis Almeida , Mike Dorning , and Mario Parker - Bloomberg
August 13, 2019, 8:34 AM PDT
American farmers already stung by President Donald Trump’s trade wars now face billions of dollars in potential losses as controversial data from the U.S. government snuffs out a rally in corn.
The Agriculture Department on Monday said farmers planted a bigger corn area than analysts estimated and pegged crop yields that also exceeded expectations, sparking the biggest rout in futures since 2013. That was a blow to growers who were holding back supplies, hoping a rally that started in May due to delayed sowing would extend through the fall.
The decline represents a potential loss of almost $3.5 billion for U.S. farmers, according to the American Farm Bureau, and is another setback for them after prices fell following the USDA’s previous acreage report, which was widely criticized for containing outdated data.
The latest data is compounding the pain from the trade war between Washington and Beijing, which has significantly reduced purchases from the world’s largest soybean buyer. Policy uncertainty has also hit the farm economy as a new U.S. deal with Mexico and Canada is yet to be passed. What’s more, the government is allowing 31 oil refineries to go without blending ethanol into fossil fuels, hurting demand for corn.
“This is a huge disappointment for farmers that have already been struggling with a lot of uncertainty with this corn crop, trade wars and what have you,” said Tanner Ehmke, manager of the research team at CoBank, a $138 billion lender to the agriculture industry. “A lot of people were banking on the opportunity to sell at much higher prices. This report now really brings that into question.”
Crashing corn prices are an additional stress for growers facing huge farm debt, which the USDA estimates will rise 3.9% this year to $427 billion. Last year, farm debt-to-income was at the highest level since 1984.
Farm Income
While farm income remained weak in the second quarter in the tenth district, the pace of declines had slowed partly as the slowest corn plantings on record boosted prices, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
The USDA pegged planted corn acres at 2.6% higher than expected while yields came in 2.8% above. Growers who were already disappointed by the price declines after the last acreage report had hoped the agency’s rare re-survey of plantings would deliver a number that better reflects one of the wettest planting seasons on record. Soybean acres were below forecasts, though yields were higher.
“I still don’t think anyone has a good, firm handle on acreage yields, and demand, especially not USDA,” said Charles Williams, who farms 13,000 acres with his father and cousin in Marion, Arkansas. “There’s a lot of calendar left to go on this crop, and I don’t know if the market will know what we have until we throw it in a pile, so to speak, at harvest.”
Data Discrepancy
Some growers also questioned the report due to the discrepancy between the figures published by the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, or NASS, and those by the Farm Service Agency, or FSA.
“We need to disregard this report, we won’t know actual acreage until this winter, I guess,” said Monte Peterson, a farmer in Valley City, North Dakota. “Makes me wonder, if our system isn’t a little broken. Harvested acreage will be a surprise at some point.”
To be sure, some market veterans agree with the USDA acreage forecast. Scott Irwin, a University of Illinois agricultural economist, said President Trump’s trade aid plan may have encouraged farmers to sow more corn since the agency had initially announced payouts would be tied to acreage planted.
Dan Basse, president of AgResource, said the USDA report showed growers took advantage of the rally earlier this year and planted more than the market expected during a window in the first 10 days of June.
Farmer Stress
Still, lower prices could add to grower stress at a time Farm Aid’s hotline has seen increasingly numbers reaching out on everything from financial counseling to crisis assistance. Angie Setzer, vice president of grain at Charlotte, Michigan-based Citizens Elevator, called on farmers in her Twitter account to reach out to her if they needed anything or “even just a place to vent.”
Concerns about a further squeeze to farmers’ financial health sent shares of tractor makers tumbling Monday, with AGCO Corp. down by the most in over a year and Deere & Co. declining by as much as 5.2%.
Lower prices could also push Trump to announce further aid to farmers as he seeks re-election next year. The president has already announced $28 billion worth of financial help for growers facing lower exports due to trade wars.
“The financial stress is there and this isn’t going to help farmers that are struggling,” CoBank’s Ehmke said, referring to corn’s decline. “Is this going to be the nail in the coffin for the farm economy? I doubt it. Because we keep throwing the kitchen sink at the farm economy and it just keeps hanging in there.”
The Agriculture Department on Monday said farmers planted a bigger corn area than analysts estimated and pegged crop yields that also exceeded expectations, sparking the biggest rout in futures since 2013. That was a blow to growers who were holding back supplies, hoping a rally that started in May due to delayed sowing would extend through the fall.
The decline represents a potential loss of almost $3.5 billion for U.S. farmers, according to the American Farm Bureau, and is another setback for them after prices fell following the USDA’s previous acreage report, which was widely criticized for containing outdated data.
The latest data is compounding the pain from the trade war between Washington and Beijing, which has significantly reduced purchases from the world’s largest soybean buyer. Policy uncertainty has also hit the farm economy as a new U.S. deal with Mexico and Canada is yet to be passed. What’s more, the government is allowing 31 oil refineries to go without blending ethanol into fossil fuels, hurting demand for corn.
“This is a huge disappointment for farmers that have already been struggling with a lot of uncertainty with this corn crop, trade wars and what have you,” said Tanner Ehmke, manager of the research team at CoBank, a $138 billion lender to the agriculture industry. “A lot of people were banking on the opportunity to sell at much higher prices. This report now really brings that into question.”
Crashing corn prices are an additional stress for growers facing huge farm debt, which the USDA estimates will rise 3.9% this year to $427 billion. Last year, farm debt-to-income was at the highest level since 1984.
Farm Income
While farm income remained weak in the second quarter in the tenth district, the pace of declines had slowed partly as the slowest corn plantings on record boosted prices, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.
The USDA pegged planted corn acres at 2.6% higher than expected while yields came in 2.8% above. Growers who were already disappointed by the price declines after the last acreage report had hoped the agency’s rare re-survey of plantings would deliver a number that better reflects one of the wettest planting seasons on record. Soybean acres were below forecasts, though yields were higher.
“I still don’t think anyone has a good, firm handle on acreage yields, and demand, especially not USDA,” said Charles Williams, who farms 13,000 acres with his father and cousin in Marion, Arkansas. “There’s a lot of calendar left to go on this crop, and I don’t know if the market will know what we have until we throw it in a pile, so to speak, at harvest.”
Data Discrepancy
Some growers also questioned the report due to the discrepancy between the figures published by the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service, or NASS, and those by the Farm Service Agency, or FSA.
“We need to disregard this report, we won’t know actual acreage until this winter, I guess,” said Monte Peterson, a farmer in Valley City, North Dakota. “Makes me wonder, if our system isn’t a little broken. Harvested acreage will be a surprise at some point.”
To be sure, some market veterans agree with the USDA acreage forecast. Scott Irwin, a University of Illinois agricultural economist, said President Trump’s trade aid plan may have encouraged farmers to sow more corn since the agency had initially announced payouts would be tied to acreage planted.
Dan Basse, president of AgResource, said the USDA report showed growers took advantage of the rally earlier this year and planted more than the market expected during a window in the first 10 days of June.
Farmer Stress
Still, lower prices could add to grower stress at a time Farm Aid’s hotline has seen increasingly numbers reaching out on everything from financial counseling to crisis assistance. Angie Setzer, vice president of grain at Charlotte, Michigan-based Citizens Elevator, called on farmers in her Twitter account to reach out to her if they needed anything or “even just a place to vent.”
Concerns about a further squeeze to farmers’ financial health sent shares of tractor makers tumbling Monday, with AGCO Corp. down by the most in over a year and Deere & Co. declining by as much as 5.2%.
Lower prices could also push Trump to announce further aid to farmers as he seeks re-election next year. The president has already announced $28 billion worth of financial help for growers facing lower exports due to trade wars.
“The financial stress is there and this isn’t going to help farmers that are struggling,” CoBank’s Ehmke said, referring to corn’s decline. “Is this going to be the nail in the coffin for the farm economy? I doubt it. Because we keep throwing the kitchen sink at the farm economy and it just keeps hanging in there.”
Can't explain stupid!!!
‘We were betrayed!’ Iraqi Christian who backed Trump in 2016 furious after president deports her uncle
August 12, 2019
By Brad Reed - Raw Story
Many Christian Iraqi immigrants backed President Donald Trump in 2016 because he regularly decried the killings of Christians in the Middle East.
Three years later, however, some of them are feeling betrayed as the president deports members of their community back to the country that he once accused of failing to protect its Christian population.
The Los Angeles Times reports that America’s largest community of Iraqi immigrants in Michigan is feeling a wave of anxiety after the recent deportation of 41-year-old Jimmy Aldaoud, who grew up in a refugee camp in Greece and had never been to Iraq until he was sent there earlier this year.
Aldaoud, a diabetic man who also struggled with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, died shortly after arriving in the country.
Eva Shamou, an Iraqi Christian who backed Trump in 2016 and whose uncle was recently sent back to Iraq despite living in the U.S. since the 1980s, tells the Los Angeles Times that many members of her community have become disillusioned with the president.
“Our church was pushing us to vote for Trump, but he sold us empty promises,” she explains. “We feel like we were betrayed… I honestly thought Trump would protect this community.”
Shamou also says that she fears for her uncle’s safety.
“He’s living in a dangerous place, and he has no money and no place to stay,” she tells the LA Times. “He told me he’s ready to commit suicide.”
Three years later, however, some of them are feeling betrayed as the president deports members of their community back to the country that he once accused of failing to protect its Christian population.
The Los Angeles Times reports that America’s largest community of Iraqi immigrants in Michigan is feeling a wave of anxiety after the recent deportation of 41-year-old Jimmy Aldaoud, who grew up in a refugee camp in Greece and had never been to Iraq until he was sent there earlier this year.
Aldaoud, a diabetic man who also struggled with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, died shortly after arriving in the country.
Eva Shamou, an Iraqi Christian who backed Trump in 2016 and whose uncle was recently sent back to Iraq despite living in the U.S. since the 1980s, tells the Los Angeles Times that many members of her community have become disillusioned with the president.
“Our church was pushing us to vote for Trump, but he sold us empty promises,” she explains. “We feel like we were betrayed… I honestly thought Trump would protect this community.”
Shamou also says that she fears for her uncle’s safety.
“He’s living in a dangerous place, and he has no money and no place to stay,” she tells the LA Times. “He told me he’s ready to commit suicide.”
‘We’re not doing great’: Furious farmers unleash on Trump’s Ag Secretary after he tells joke about whining farmers
August 7, 2019
By Sarah K. Burris - Raw Story
President Donald Trump’s promises to rural America haven’t worked out well. He promised farmers that he would fight for them and get better trade deals. He failed. He then promised farmers that he would bail them out with a subsidy saving them from the trade war. He failed, giving the overwhelming majority of the subsidies to corporate farms, most of which aren’t even in rural American. Now farmers are striking back.
Bloomberg News reported a meeting between farmers and Sec. of Agriculture Sonny Perdue did not go well Wednesday.
”Farmers’ discontent over President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war with China erupted into the open,” the site reported.
Gary Wertish, president of the Minnesota Farmers Union, unleashed on Perdue calling out the administration for causing “devastating damage not only to rural communities.”
He trashed Trump’s $28 billion “trade aid,” saying that the public already views it “as a welfare program” or “bailouts.”
Chris Clayton, the ag policy editor for DTN, noted that Perdue tried to lighten the mood by telling a joke: “What do you call two farmers in a basement? A whine cellar.” The joke drew boos from a crowd for trying to label angry farmers as whiners.
Brian Thalmann, who serves as the president of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association, lamented that Trump’s claim that farmers are doing “great,” was a lie.
“We are not starting to do great again,” he said. “We are starting to go down very quickly.”
American Soybean Association’s Joel Schreurs explained that they’re in real danger of losing “long-term” because of the trade war with China, because the country is their largest importer.
Perdue went on the attack.
“If your solution is to forget about what China has done and sell and trade with them anyway with cheating, then I just fundamentally disagree with you,” he told farmers.
In June, Trump enjoyed 54 percent approval rating of rural voters.
Bloomberg News reported a meeting between farmers and Sec. of Agriculture Sonny Perdue did not go well Wednesday.
”Farmers’ discontent over President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war with China erupted into the open,” the site reported.
Gary Wertish, president of the Minnesota Farmers Union, unleashed on Perdue calling out the administration for causing “devastating damage not only to rural communities.”
He trashed Trump’s $28 billion “trade aid,” saying that the public already views it “as a welfare program” or “bailouts.”
Chris Clayton, the ag policy editor for DTN, noted that Perdue tried to lighten the mood by telling a joke: “What do you call two farmers in a basement? A whine cellar.” The joke drew boos from a crowd for trying to label angry farmers as whiners.
Brian Thalmann, who serves as the president of the Minnesota Corn Growers Association, lamented that Trump’s claim that farmers are doing “great,” was a lie.
“We are not starting to do great again,” he said. “We are starting to go down very quickly.”
American Soybean Association’s Joel Schreurs explained that they’re in real danger of losing “long-term” because of the trade war with China, because the country is their largest importer.
Perdue went on the attack.
“If your solution is to forget about what China has done and sell and trade with them anyway with cheating, then I just fundamentally disagree with you,” he told farmers.
In June, Trump enjoyed 54 percent approval rating of rural voters.
Trump tariff war victim: Minnesota farmer auctions off what little he has to keep century-old family farm
August 3, 2019
By Bob Brigham - Raw Story
The Krocak family in Montgomery, Minnesota had to auction off their equipment due to President Donald Trump’s trade wars, The Washington Post reported Saturday.
“The feed chopper was the only machine Bob Krocak ever bought new, back when he was starting out as an ambitious young dairy farmer,” the paper reported. “Now, on a chilly Saturday morning, Krocak, 64, was standing next to the chopper in the parking lot of Fahey Sales Auctioneers and Appraisers, trying to sell what he had always prized.”
Krocak paid $6,700 for the chopper in 1977, but only received $150 for it at the auction.
“Krocak needed the money to stave off bankruptcy and hold on to the land that has been in his family since 1888. Hundreds of other farmers around the country, grappling with rising debt, dismal commodity prices and the fallout of the Trump administration’s trade wars, are facing the same fate,” the paper noted. “Net farm income has dropped by nearly half in the past five years, from $123 billion to $63 billion.”
“Dairy farmers have lost at least $2.3 billion in revenue since the trade wars began, according to the National Milk Producers Federation. The Krocaks were one of 313 dairy operations in Minnesota to fold in 2018, a 10 percent drop,” The Post noted.
Bob Krocak’s son, Marty, worries he won’t be able to take over the farm.
“It’s on our minds all time. We could lose the whole farm,” Marty said.
“The feed chopper was the only machine Bob Krocak ever bought new, back when he was starting out as an ambitious young dairy farmer,” the paper reported. “Now, on a chilly Saturday morning, Krocak, 64, was standing next to the chopper in the parking lot of Fahey Sales Auctioneers and Appraisers, trying to sell what he had always prized.”
Krocak paid $6,700 for the chopper in 1977, but only received $150 for it at the auction.
“Krocak needed the money to stave off bankruptcy and hold on to the land that has been in his family since 1888. Hundreds of other farmers around the country, grappling with rising debt, dismal commodity prices and the fallout of the Trump administration’s trade wars, are facing the same fate,” the paper noted. “Net farm income has dropped by nearly half in the past five years, from $123 billion to $63 billion.”
“Dairy farmers have lost at least $2.3 billion in revenue since the trade wars began, according to the National Milk Producers Federation. The Krocaks were one of 313 dairy operations in Minnesota to fold in 2018, a 10 percent drop,” The Post noted.
Bob Krocak’s son, Marty, worries he won’t be able to take over the farm.
“It’s on our minds all time. We could lose the whole farm,” Marty said.
American farmer: Trump trade war ‘took away all our markets’
Written by Alex Henderson - Alternet
August 1, 2019
Defenders of President Donald Trump’s trade war with China have insisted that American farmers will be better off in the longrun, and the White House recently announced it would be giving farmers an additional $16 billion in aid to help them cope with the trade war’s effects. But in a report for Yahoo Finance this week, journalist Adriana Belmonte stresses that American farmers have a problem that farm aid isn’t going to cure: they’re lost their markets.
China, Belmonte notes, purchased a lot of American farm products in the past, from wheat to soybeans. In 2016 and 2017, for example, China imported 61 million bushels of wheat from the United States. But thanks to the trade war, Belmonte reports, China is importing from other countries instead, including wheat from Russia and soybeans from Brazil.
Bob Kuylen, a North Dakota wheat farmer, told Yahoo Finance, “This trade thing is what’s brought on by the president, and it’s really frustrating because he took away all of our markets. We live in an area where we’re kind of in the middle of nowhere. It costs us a lot of money: over $1 a bushel to get our grain to markets.”
Kuylen observed, “All these countries went to different countries to get their grain. How are we going to get the relations back with them to buy our grain again and be our customers?”
Blake Hurst, president of the Missouri Farm Bureau, told Yahoo Finance that while farm aid is “welcome help for the bottom line of Missouri farmers,” the trade war is still painful.
Hurst asserted, “Farmers are profoundly wary of the trade war, embarrassed that ad hoc government subsidies are all that stands between many of us and financial ruin — and ready for the return of more normal times.”
China, Belmonte notes, purchased a lot of American farm products in the past, from wheat to soybeans. In 2016 and 2017, for example, China imported 61 million bushels of wheat from the United States. But thanks to the trade war, Belmonte reports, China is importing from other countries instead, including wheat from Russia and soybeans from Brazil.
Bob Kuylen, a North Dakota wheat farmer, told Yahoo Finance, “This trade thing is what’s brought on by the president, and it’s really frustrating because he took away all of our markets. We live in an area where we’re kind of in the middle of nowhere. It costs us a lot of money: over $1 a bushel to get our grain to markets.”
Kuylen observed, “All these countries went to different countries to get their grain. How are we going to get the relations back with them to buy our grain again and be our customers?”
Blake Hurst, president of the Missouri Farm Bureau, told Yahoo Finance that while farm aid is “welcome help for the bottom line of Missouri farmers,” the trade war is still painful.
Hurst asserted, “Farmers are profoundly wary of the trade war, embarrassed that ad hoc government subsidies are all that stands between many of us and financial ruin — and ready for the return of more normal times.”
Trump shafted family farmers to give trade war bailouts to huge corporate farms instead: report
July 30, 2019
By Matthew Chapman - Raw Story
President Donald Trump has tried to paper over the disaster his trade war has been causing for American farmers by issuing a $16 billion bailout, paying farmers for the work they lost due to the tariffs — meaning that he is effectively borrowing money from China to pay farmers not to sell their goods to China.
But Trump’s policy is even more disastrous than it looks on paper, according to a new report from the Environmental Working Group.
Of the $16 billion in “Market Facilitation Payments” Trump’s Department of Agriculture appropriated, the group found, 54 percent of it went to just the top one-tenth of farms, with 82 farmers receiving at least $500,000 and many of the recipients actually living in large cities. Smaller family farms, meanwhile, have received very little, with the bottom 80 percent of farmers getting less than $5,000 each — and farmers of color have received almost nothing.
The USDA initially said it would cap payments at $125,000 — but in practice, Trump officials have allowed the richest farmers to get around that limit by having family members who do not do meaningful work on the farm apply for their own payments, double-dipping again and again.
And the next round of payments could be even more skewed. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has announced that unlike the previous rounds, which paid farmers by the bushel or bale of produce, farmers will now be paid by the acre — meaning that small farms will automatically get less than large farms even if they are more productive or lost more money.
Again and again, Trump has forced middle America to pay the cost of his policies — and now he is specifically victimizing middle America’s poor.
But Trump’s policy is even more disastrous than it looks on paper, according to a new report from the Environmental Working Group.
Of the $16 billion in “Market Facilitation Payments” Trump’s Department of Agriculture appropriated, the group found, 54 percent of it went to just the top one-tenth of farms, with 82 farmers receiving at least $500,000 and many of the recipients actually living in large cities. Smaller family farms, meanwhile, have received very little, with the bottom 80 percent of farmers getting less than $5,000 each — and farmers of color have received almost nothing.
The USDA initially said it would cap payments at $125,000 — but in practice, Trump officials have allowed the richest farmers to get around that limit by having family members who do not do meaningful work on the farm apply for their own payments, double-dipping again and again.
And the next round of payments could be even more skewed. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue has announced that unlike the previous rounds, which paid farmers by the bushel or bale of produce, farmers will now be paid by the acre — meaning that small farms will automatically get less than large farms even if they are more productive or lost more money.
Again and again, Trump has forced middle America to pay the cost of his policies — and now he is specifically victimizing middle America’s poor.
‘Don’t sell your homes – those plants are not closing’: Trump told voters who are now losing their jobs
July 30, 2019
By Sarah K. Burris - Raw Story
During a 2017 rally, President told manufacturing workers in Youngstown, Ohio that none the plants were going to close because as president he was going to stop it.
“I’ll tell ya what, I rode through your beautiful roads coming up from the [Youngstown Warren Regional] Airport and I was looking at some of those big, once-incredible job-producing factories,” Trump said in front of a sold-out crowd. “And my wife Melania said, ‘What happened?’ I said, ‘Those jobs have left Ohio.’ They’re all coming back. They’re all coming back.”
“Don’t move. Don’t sell your house,” Trump went on.
Less than a 4-hour drive from Youngstown, Warren, Michigan residents are watching as a 78-year-old General Motors plant is closing, in spite of the president’s promise to save their jobs.
Macomb County was one of the Michigan counties to vote for Trump in 2016. NBC News correspondent Anne Thompson reported most workers are being offered jobs in other plants around the country, but it will require they move.
“It’s very stressful,” said Ghana Goodwin-Dye, who has worked for GM for 34 years. She said the only thing the UAW local union can do is tell people that the plant is closing and that they’ll be “picked up somewhere.”
Thus far, 60 workers have moved to other locations, 25 have retired, and 177 workers are searching for what to do next.
“I’ll tell ya what, I rode through your beautiful roads coming up from the [Youngstown Warren Regional] Airport and I was looking at some of those big, once-incredible job-producing factories,” Trump said in front of a sold-out crowd. “And my wife Melania said, ‘What happened?’ I said, ‘Those jobs have left Ohio.’ They’re all coming back. They’re all coming back.”
“Don’t move. Don’t sell your house,” Trump went on.
Less than a 4-hour drive from Youngstown, Warren, Michigan residents are watching as a 78-year-old General Motors plant is closing, in spite of the president’s promise to save their jobs.
Macomb County was one of the Michigan counties to vote for Trump in 2016. NBC News correspondent Anne Thompson reported most workers are being offered jobs in other plants around the country, but it will require they move.
“It’s very stressful,” said Ghana Goodwin-Dye, who has worked for GM for 34 years. She said the only thing the UAW local union can do is tell people that the plant is closing and that they’ll be “picked up somewhere.”
Thus far, 60 workers have moved to other locations, 25 have retired, and 177 workers are searching for what to do next.
As the coal industry falls apart, miners face losing their pensions
The Trump administration continues to tout its commitment to coal, but it has failed to protect miners from the industry’s collapse.
By Molly Taft - NEXUS MEDIA - Thinkprogress
JUL 24, 2019, 10:38 AM
In June, the Trump administration unveiled one of its largest environmental rollbacks to date: replacing the Obama administration’s Clean Power Plan rule, which regulated carbon pollution from power plants. The rule had been a favorite target of President Donald Trump as he stumped on the campaign trail and held presidential rallies. “We’ve ended the war on beautiful, clean coal and we’re putting our coal miners back to work,” he said during a speech in West Virginia last November.
But Trump’s promises to save coal have yet come to pass — and miners are becoming increasingly worried for their future.
This week, coal miners from across the country will visit Capitol Hill to demand that Congress protect their pension plans. The visit comes amid grim news for the industry. Six coal companies have declared bankruptcy since October, with two companies going under in this month alone.
Coal workers, in turn, are pushing Congress to pass the Miners Pension Protection Act, which would transfer federal funds into the troubled United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) 1974 Pension Plan. But even if lawmakers figure out a solution for the problems plaguing the pension plan, it will be just the beginning of solving a larger issue. Thousands of retirees across the country are on the brink of losing healthcare and security in various pension and retirement plans as the industry takes a nosedive.
The pension plan dates to 1946, when the federal government struck a deal with the miners that required coal companies to provide pensions and health care for retired miners. In exchange, miners agreed to end a nationwide strike. The current formation of the fund was negotiated in 1974.
The fund guarantees miners will be taken care of for working a dangerous job that often can take a serious toll on their health. But miners are now worried that guarantee won’t last. The fund lost $2 billion in the 2008 recession and took additional hits over the next few years after several coal companies went bankrupt. Since January, when Mission Coal went bankrupt, only one of the original companies in the 1974 pension fund plan, Murray Energy, has been paying dues into the fund.
If lawmakers don’t stabilize the pension fund, the union expects nearly 100,000 miners will lose pensions and health care benefits around 2022. But if Murray Energy collapses, that could happen much sooner.
“If [Murray Energy] were to file bankruptcy — and a lot of coal companies are filing bankruptcy these days — the fund would collapse within a matter of six months,” said Phil Smith, director of communications and governmental affairs at UMWA. The 2022 expiration date, Smith explained, assumes no more coal bankruptcies over the next two years — an optimistic scenario. “We don’t believe we have that much time to wait,” Smith said.
Even if lawmakers shore up the UMWA pension plan, that will only cover some miners. Even more who belong to other pension plans negotiated by the union risk losing health care and retirement benefits as the industry plummets.
For nearly a year, miners at Westmoreland Coal’s mines in Wyoming, Colorado, and Montana have faced an uncertain future as the company, which does not contribute to the UMWA fund but does pay into a pension plan for its workers, goes through bankruptcy proceedings. In March, a bankruptcy judge ruled that the company would be allowed to freeze its current pension plan as it negotiated a contract with a buyer.
Companies often shed pension plans, health care benefits, and union contracts during bankruptcies, as they restructure and attempt to find new buyers. Bankruptcies also provide coal companies the opportunity to duck out of other financial liabilities, including environmental cleanup costs and taxes. This can free up money for costly executive payouts.
Bankruptcy filings show that Westmoreland paid-out $10.2 million to executives in severance payments, salary bumps and bonuses a year before the bankruptcy, and short-shifted miners are calling foul.
“Coal miners, both underground and surface miners, are the hardest working people in America, and their safety and working conditions are the most dangerous in this country, with black lung, silicosis, and other breathing disorders, and from a safety standpoint, falling roofs, rocks, slips, falls, equipment mishaps, and working around beltlines, pulleys and other pinch points,” retired miner Jim Villos wrote in a letter sent to the bankruptcy judge. “We, the miners, kept our end of the deal and Westmoreland needs to keep their promise, too!”
Over the past few years, coal companies in the West have largely survived while Appalachian firms struggled, partially because western mines produce cleaner-burning coal that can be more easily mined. But now, even the western mines aren’t safe. And as Wyoming author Bob LeResche pointed out in a recent piece in WyoFile, as the industry continues to collapse, companies are using bankruptcy proceedings to eke out money for those at the top while leaving miners without a safety net.
After the bankruptcy of a big coal company, LeResche wrote, those who move in to clean up the damage “will bleed the mines’ remaining assets and escape liabilities to workers, communities and the environment; liabilities that have accrued over decades. They tend to be litigious, and are not strangers to the world of serial bankruptcies and corporate manipulation. Their environmental records are seldom clean. These are not the operators and corporate neighbors one would normally invite into the neighborhood.”
As the 2020 election looms and conversation continues around the Green New Deal, the UMWA has invited presidential candidates to visit coal mines, where they will speak to miners’ concerns about their futures. What remains to be seen is how miners will cope with the death of their industry.
“The problem is bankruptcy laws are made for corporations,” UMWA’s Mike Dalpiaz told NPR in March. “They’re made by rich guys in Congress for rich guys that own corporations.”
But Trump’s promises to save coal have yet come to pass — and miners are becoming increasingly worried for their future.
This week, coal miners from across the country will visit Capitol Hill to demand that Congress protect their pension plans. The visit comes amid grim news for the industry. Six coal companies have declared bankruptcy since October, with two companies going under in this month alone.
Coal workers, in turn, are pushing Congress to pass the Miners Pension Protection Act, which would transfer federal funds into the troubled United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) 1974 Pension Plan. But even if lawmakers figure out a solution for the problems plaguing the pension plan, it will be just the beginning of solving a larger issue. Thousands of retirees across the country are on the brink of losing healthcare and security in various pension and retirement plans as the industry takes a nosedive.
The pension plan dates to 1946, when the federal government struck a deal with the miners that required coal companies to provide pensions and health care for retired miners. In exchange, miners agreed to end a nationwide strike. The current formation of the fund was negotiated in 1974.
The fund guarantees miners will be taken care of for working a dangerous job that often can take a serious toll on their health. But miners are now worried that guarantee won’t last. The fund lost $2 billion in the 2008 recession and took additional hits over the next few years after several coal companies went bankrupt. Since January, when Mission Coal went bankrupt, only one of the original companies in the 1974 pension fund plan, Murray Energy, has been paying dues into the fund.
If lawmakers don’t stabilize the pension fund, the union expects nearly 100,000 miners will lose pensions and health care benefits around 2022. But if Murray Energy collapses, that could happen much sooner.
“If [Murray Energy] were to file bankruptcy — and a lot of coal companies are filing bankruptcy these days — the fund would collapse within a matter of six months,” said Phil Smith, director of communications and governmental affairs at UMWA. The 2022 expiration date, Smith explained, assumes no more coal bankruptcies over the next two years — an optimistic scenario. “We don’t believe we have that much time to wait,” Smith said.
Even if lawmakers shore up the UMWA pension plan, that will only cover some miners. Even more who belong to other pension plans negotiated by the union risk losing health care and retirement benefits as the industry plummets.
For nearly a year, miners at Westmoreland Coal’s mines in Wyoming, Colorado, and Montana have faced an uncertain future as the company, which does not contribute to the UMWA fund but does pay into a pension plan for its workers, goes through bankruptcy proceedings. In March, a bankruptcy judge ruled that the company would be allowed to freeze its current pension plan as it negotiated a contract with a buyer.
Companies often shed pension plans, health care benefits, and union contracts during bankruptcies, as they restructure and attempt to find new buyers. Bankruptcies also provide coal companies the opportunity to duck out of other financial liabilities, including environmental cleanup costs and taxes. This can free up money for costly executive payouts.
Bankruptcy filings show that Westmoreland paid-out $10.2 million to executives in severance payments, salary bumps and bonuses a year before the bankruptcy, and short-shifted miners are calling foul.
“Coal miners, both underground and surface miners, are the hardest working people in America, and their safety and working conditions are the most dangerous in this country, with black lung, silicosis, and other breathing disorders, and from a safety standpoint, falling roofs, rocks, slips, falls, equipment mishaps, and working around beltlines, pulleys and other pinch points,” retired miner Jim Villos wrote in a letter sent to the bankruptcy judge. “We, the miners, kept our end of the deal and Westmoreland needs to keep their promise, too!”
Over the past few years, coal companies in the West have largely survived while Appalachian firms struggled, partially because western mines produce cleaner-burning coal that can be more easily mined. But now, even the western mines aren’t safe. And as Wyoming author Bob LeResche pointed out in a recent piece in WyoFile, as the industry continues to collapse, companies are using bankruptcy proceedings to eke out money for those at the top while leaving miners without a safety net.
After the bankruptcy of a big coal company, LeResche wrote, those who move in to clean up the damage “will bleed the mines’ remaining assets and escape liabilities to workers, communities and the environment; liabilities that have accrued over decades. They tend to be litigious, and are not strangers to the world of serial bankruptcies and corporate manipulation. Their environmental records are seldom clean. These are not the operators and corporate neighbors one would normally invite into the neighborhood.”
As the 2020 election looms and conversation continues around the Green New Deal, the UMWA has invited presidential candidates to visit coal mines, where they will speak to miners’ concerns about their futures. What remains to be seen is how miners will cope with the death of their industry.
“The problem is bankruptcy laws are made for corporations,” UMWA’s Mike Dalpiaz told NPR in March. “They’re made by rich guys in Congress for rich guys that own corporations.”
Trump's tariffs trip up the all-American RV industry
Timothy Aeppel - Reuters
JULY 18, 2019
ELKHART, Ind. (Reuters) - Carrie Gray points to a stack of unwelcome mail on a conference table at the offices of Renegade RV, one of the leading U.S. manufacturers of high-end recreational vehicles. She’s buried in bad news from most of her about 350 suppliers.
“We got letters from 75 percent of them demanding tariff-related price increases,” explains Gray, Renegade’s materials manager.
About 85% of the recreational vehicles sold in the United States are built in and around Elkhart County, making it a popular stop for politicians to tout their visions for U.S. manufacturing – including President Donald Trump, who staged a rally here last May.
And yet this uniquely American manufacturing sector has been caught in the crossfire of Trump’s trade war, according to interviews with industry insiders and economists, along with data showing a steep sales decline amid rising costs and consumer prices. The industry has taken hits from U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum and other duties on scores of Chinese-made RV parts, from plumbing fixtures to electronic components to vinyl seat covers.
Shipments of RVs to dealers have fallen 22% percent in the first five months of this year, compared to the same period last year, after slipping 4% in 2018, according to the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association.
The RV industry’s woes illustrate how even the most “American” of manufacturers, the kind of industries Trump has vowed to protect, can be heavily exposed to tariffs in a world of globalized supply chains.
Tariff-related price hikes have forced manufacturers to pass on some of the increased costs though higher RV prices, which in turn has contributed to slower sales. As dealers cut orders, many plants furloughed workers or reduced hours, including Renegade, which has reduced its headcount of 160 by about 10 workers since May at its two factories here.
Michael Hicks, a Ball State University economist who tracks the industry, said its decline is far worse than he or other analysts expected and could signal a wider economic downturn. RV shipments have fallen sharply just before the last three U.S. recessions.
“The RV industry is a great bellwether of the economy,” said Hicks, because the vehicles are an expensive and discretionary purchase, easily delayed by consumers who start to worry about their financial stability.
The Commerce Department said in a statement that it has “met with private industry” to hear concerns about steel and aluminum tariffs and that it has granted most U.S. companies’ requests for tariff exemptions among the applications it has fully processed. The department referred questions about tariffs on Chinese goods to the office of the United States Trade Representative, which did not respond to requests for comment.
The RV industry may have contributed to its own problems by building too many factories during a sales boom in recent years, leading to an oversupply now. But tariffs were the pivotal factor in the industry’s decline, said managers at RV manufacturers and suppliers.
“The tariff price increases are what tipped the RV business — it started the landslide, no question,” said Tom Bond, the materials and purchasing manager at Adnik Manufacturing, an Elkhart-based division of Norco Industries that has been hit with higher costs on metals it uses to make components such as seat frames.
Sitting in an office near the front of the Adnik factory, Bond and Ronald Dick, the company’s brand manager, spent an hour griping about the speed and scope of their materials costs increases. And yet, like many in this region that strongly supported Trump’s election, they often added the caveat that they support the larger goal of the tariffs to protect U.S. factories from unfair foreign competition.
“It’s good for our country in the long haul,” said Dick, “but it’s going to hurt.”
Thor Industries Inc - which controls nearly half the RV market - said its sales in North America fell about 23% in its fiscal third quarter, which ended in April, compared to a year ago. The company said in a release that it has cut production and shifted to four-day weeks at some North American plants.
---
CUTTING WORKERS AS STEEL PRICES RISE
Despite its all-American image, the RV industry relies on imports for everything from air compressors and appliances to bedding fabrics and the LED light strings that have become a popular interior feature.
The cost of metals surged dramatically after sweeping tariffs on steel and aluminum were imposed last year. Those prices have since moderated, but manufacturers say many of the price increases on the metal parts they buy haven’t gone away.
Elkhart’s RV industry anchors a large network of related transport equipment companies, including utility trailer makers and specialty bus manufacturers, who rely on the same supply chains. Matt Arnold, president of utility trailer manufacturer Look Trailers based in Middlebury, Ind., said the axles he buys had three price hikes and are now 28% higher than before tariffs, while his Chinese tire rims were hit with a 65% tariff.
His rim supplier shifted to a source in Vietnam, but those still cost 8% more than he was paying before. In response, he boosted his trailer prices by about 20%, but that tanked sales. So far, he’s had to shutter his Georgia factory, laying off 80 people, and cut about 10% of his workforce in Indiana.
---
RISING RV PRICES, SLOWING SALES
Tariffs have so far translated into a 5% increase in RV sticker prices for consumers, estimates Gregg Fore, chief revenue officer at trade magazine RV Business and the former owner of an RV parts supplier, based on anecdotal reports and proprietary sales data he has seen.
“That doesn’t sound like a lot, until you start to talk about adding $1,000 to the price of a $20,000 vehicle,” he said.
Many RVs cost far more. Renegade, for instance, sells models that cost as much as $750,000 and can come with multiple bathrooms, heated tile floors and cedar closets.
Some industry leaders say the business will stabilize once dealers reduce excess stocks. But many of the region’s leaders are worried, including Jackie Walorski, the Republican who represents the area in Congress.
Walorski is an outspoken critic of President Trump’s tariffs, although she steps lightly. In a statement, she praised the President’s tax cuts and other policies for helping fuel economic growth.
“At the same time, I have not been afraid to stand up for Hoosiers when tariffs and retaliatory measures have put those gains at risk,” she said, using a common nickname for Indiana residents. “As I’ve told the president, we need to put a stop to China’s unfair trade practices by using a scalpel, not an axe.”
“We got letters from 75 percent of them demanding tariff-related price increases,” explains Gray, Renegade’s materials manager.
About 85% of the recreational vehicles sold in the United States are built in and around Elkhart County, making it a popular stop for politicians to tout their visions for U.S. manufacturing – including President Donald Trump, who staged a rally here last May.
And yet this uniquely American manufacturing sector has been caught in the crossfire of Trump’s trade war, according to interviews with industry insiders and economists, along with data showing a steep sales decline amid rising costs and consumer prices. The industry has taken hits from U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum and other duties on scores of Chinese-made RV parts, from plumbing fixtures to electronic components to vinyl seat covers.
Shipments of RVs to dealers have fallen 22% percent in the first five months of this year, compared to the same period last year, after slipping 4% in 2018, according to the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association.
The RV industry’s woes illustrate how even the most “American” of manufacturers, the kind of industries Trump has vowed to protect, can be heavily exposed to tariffs in a world of globalized supply chains.
Tariff-related price hikes have forced manufacturers to pass on some of the increased costs though higher RV prices, which in turn has contributed to slower sales. As dealers cut orders, many plants furloughed workers or reduced hours, including Renegade, which has reduced its headcount of 160 by about 10 workers since May at its two factories here.
Michael Hicks, a Ball State University economist who tracks the industry, said its decline is far worse than he or other analysts expected and could signal a wider economic downturn. RV shipments have fallen sharply just before the last three U.S. recessions.
“The RV industry is a great bellwether of the economy,” said Hicks, because the vehicles are an expensive and discretionary purchase, easily delayed by consumers who start to worry about their financial stability.
The Commerce Department said in a statement that it has “met with private industry” to hear concerns about steel and aluminum tariffs and that it has granted most U.S. companies’ requests for tariff exemptions among the applications it has fully processed. The department referred questions about tariffs on Chinese goods to the office of the United States Trade Representative, which did not respond to requests for comment.
The RV industry may have contributed to its own problems by building too many factories during a sales boom in recent years, leading to an oversupply now. But tariffs were the pivotal factor in the industry’s decline, said managers at RV manufacturers and suppliers.
“The tariff price increases are what tipped the RV business — it started the landslide, no question,” said Tom Bond, the materials and purchasing manager at Adnik Manufacturing, an Elkhart-based division of Norco Industries that has been hit with higher costs on metals it uses to make components such as seat frames.
Sitting in an office near the front of the Adnik factory, Bond and Ronald Dick, the company’s brand manager, spent an hour griping about the speed and scope of their materials costs increases. And yet, like many in this region that strongly supported Trump’s election, they often added the caveat that they support the larger goal of the tariffs to protect U.S. factories from unfair foreign competition.
“It’s good for our country in the long haul,” said Dick, “but it’s going to hurt.”
Thor Industries Inc - which controls nearly half the RV market - said its sales in North America fell about 23% in its fiscal third quarter, which ended in April, compared to a year ago. The company said in a release that it has cut production and shifted to four-day weeks at some North American plants.
---
CUTTING WORKERS AS STEEL PRICES RISE
Despite its all-American image, the RV industry relies on imports for everything from air compressors and appliances to bedding fabrics and the LED light strings that have become a popular interior feature.
The cost of metals surged dramatically after sweeping tariffs on steel and aluminum were imposed last year. Those prices have since moderated, but manufacturers say many of the price increases on the metal parts they buy haven’t gone away.
Elkhart’s RV industry anchors a large network of related transport equipment companies, including utility trailer makers and specialty bus manufacturers, who rely on the same supply chains. Matt Arnold, president of utility trailer manufacturer Look Trailers based in Middlebury, Ind., said the axles he buys had three price hikes and are now 28% higher than before tariffs, while his Chinese tire rims were hit with a 65% tariff.
His rim supplier shifted to a source in Vietnam, but those still cost 8% more than he was paying before. In response, he boosted his trailer prices by about 20%, but that tanked sales. So far, he’s had to shutter his Georgia factory, laying off 80 people, and cut about 10% of his workforce in Indiana.
---
RISING RV PRICES, SLOWING SALES
Tariffs have so far translated into a 5% increase in RV sticker prices for consumers, estimates Gregg Fore, chief revenue officer at trade magazine RV Business and the former owner of an RV parts supplier, based on anecdotal reports and proprietary sales data he has seen.
“That doesn’t sound like a lot, until you start to talk about adding $1,000 to the price of a $20,000 vehicle,” he said.
Many RVs cost far more. Renegade, for instance, sells models that cost as much as $750,000 and can come with multiple bathrooms, heated tile floors and cedar closets.
Some industry leaders say the business will stabilize once dealers reduce excess stocks. But many of the region’s leaders are worried, including Jackie Walorski, the Republican who represents the area in Congress.
Walorski is an outspoken critic of President Trump’s tariffs, although she steps lightly. In a statement, she praised the President’s tax cuts and other policies for helping fuel economic growth.
“At the same time, I have not been afraid to stand up for Hoosiers when tariffs and retaliatory measures have put those gains at risk,” she said, using a common nickname for Indiana residents. “As I’ve told the president, we need to put a stop to China’s unfair trade practices by using a scalpel, not an axe.”
Fiscal collapse of coal towns all but certain, new research shows
There are, however, things that can be done to help impacted areas mitigate risk.
E.A. CRUNDEN - Thinkprogress
JUL 16, 2019, 1:19 PM
New research shows that communities in coal country are at an increased risk of fiscal collapse. The data is the latest blow to President Donald Trump’s ongoing but faltering efforts to rescue the industry and its workers.
Local governments dependent on coal are failing to account for the financial implications of the industry’s demise, according to new findings from Columbia University and the Brookings Institution. That trend is likely to worsen should the federal government take action to curb carbon emissions, which would be likely if a Democrat were to triumph in 2020.
Released Monday, the new report looks at 26 counties in 10 states, all in Appalachia or the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming. Those areas are all classified as “coal-mining dependent,” meaning that the industry is a major employer there, with some 53,000 workers noted by the study.
Coal also serves as a major contributor to local governments in those places. Despite that dependency, however, the report finds that those areas, already hard-hit by coal’s decline, are not prepared for the implications of potential climate policies.
“If the United States undertakes actions to address the risks of climate change, the use of coal in the power sector will decline rapidly,” the report observes, while going on to note that coal-dependent governments “have yet to grapple with the implications of climate policies for their financial conditions.”
With the backdrop of the plummeting coal industry, the study broadly examines the fiscal risk posed to communities heavily reliant on that sector. Between 2007 and 2017, coal production fell by a third, a decline that is set to continue even under current policies with a pro-coal federal government. But even a “moderately stringent climate policy,” the researchers note, could lead the industry to plummet by around 75% into the 2020s.
That would likely be disastrous for unprepared communities. School districts and other systems in these areas rely on coal-dependent revenue and local economies are heavily intertwined with the industry. Historically, the study argues, “the rapid decline of a dominant industry” has led to the fiscal collapse of local governments, threatening their long-term well-being.
And despite the risk that coal’s decline poses to reliant communities, government filings fail to capture this. “[M]unicipalities are at best uneven and at worst misleading (by omission) in their characterizations of climate-related risks,” the report notes.
Those findings come at a grim time for the industry. Coal has been declining for years, a trend due largely to market factors. Renewables and cheaper fossil fuels, like natural gas, have dethroned coal in recent decades. But Trump has made rescuing the industry a key mission of his presidency, going so far as to float bailing out coal, along with the also-struggling nuclear power sector.
Trump’s efforts to save coal have been primarily concentrated in regulatory rollbacks and rule-weakening. In May, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule, replacing the Obama-era Clean Power Plan (CPP), which used the federal government to target the emissions produced by coal-fired power plants.
By contrast, the ACE rule largely turns that authority over to the states, in a move experts have argued would not save the coal industry but would likely drive up emissions.
New data similarly indicates that the administration’s efforts aren’t shifting coal’s trajectory, even short-term. S&P Global reported Monday that despite the ACE rule, several coal plant operators are still going ahead with scheduled retirements.
Those operators argue that even despite the rule change, the “dynamics” within the industry will not shift, such as the rising popularity of renewables and natural gas. Notably, more coal plants shuttered during Trump’s first two years in office than during the entire first term of the Obama administration.
Even as coal collapses, however, experts argue that more can be done to help impacted communities. Proposals like the Green New Deal, a blueprint for rapidly decarbonizing the economy, include calls for a “just transition” — a clause that would ensure protections for coal miners and other impacted fossil fuel workers. Many Democratic 2020 contenders have endorsed the Green New Deal along with calling for a just transition for frontline communities hit hard by efforts towards net-zero emissions.
But some unions have aligned against the Green New Deal, expressing concern over the impact of decarbonization on those workers, even as other unions — including Service Employees International Union (SEIU) — have backed the proposal.
As Monday’s study emphasizes, advance planning is needed as coal communities head towards collapse; this could include potentially a carbon pricing system that would see funds redistributed to those impacted.
“A new source of government revenue may be required to push a serious economic development program across the finish line,” the report says, underscoring that a “logical source of these funds would be a federal carbon price.”
Even that may be a hard sell in many communities. Trump has expressed no interest in a carbon tax and local efforts have struggled. Washington state failed last November to enshrine a carbon pricing effort after a record-breaking financial opposition effort from out-of-state oil companies. And last month, Oregon Republicans left the state in order to kill a similar effort.
Still, the coal industry is keeping close ties to the administration. Bob Murray, CEO of coal mining corporation Murray Energy, is hosting a private fundraising event for Trump’s re-election campaign later this month, according to Documented. The fundraiser will be held in West Virginia, one of the most coal-reliant communities.
Local governments dependent on coal are failing to account for the financial implications of the industry’s demise, according to new findings from Columbia University and the Brookings Institution. That trend is likely to worsen should the federal government take action to curb carbon emissions, which would be likely if a Democrat were to triumph in 2020.
Released Monday, the new report looks at 26 counties in 10 states, all in Appalachia or the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming. Those areas are all classified as “coal-mining dependent,” meaning that the industry is a major employer there, with some 53,000 workers noted by the study.
Coal also serves as a major contributor to local governments in those places. Despite that dependency, however, the report finds that those areas, already hard-hit by coal’s decline, are not prepared for the implications of potential climate policies.
“If the United States undertakes actions to address the risks of climate change, the use of coal in the power sector will decline rapidly,” the report observes, while going on to note that coal-dependent governments “have yet to grapple with the implications of climate policies for their financial conditions.”
With the backdrop of the plummeting coal industry, the study broadly examines the fiscal risk posed to communities heavily reliant on that sector. Between 2007 and 2017, coal production fell by a third, a decline that is set to continue even under current policies with a pro-coal federal government. But even a “moderately stringent climate policy,” the researchers note, could lead the industry to plummet by around 75% into the 2020s.
That would likely be disastrous for unprepared communities. School districts and other systems in these areas rely on coal-dependent revenue and local economies are heavily intertwined with the industry. Historically, the study argues, “the rapid decline of a dominant industry” has led to the fiscal collapse of local governments, threatening their long-term well-being.
And despite the risk that coal’s decline poses to reliant communities, government filings fail to capture this. “[M]unicipalities are at best uneven and at worst misleading (by omission) in their characterizations of climate-related risks,” the report notes.
Those findings come at a grim time for the industry. Coal has been declining for years, a trend due largely to market factors. Renewables and cheaper fossil fuels, like natural gas, have dethroned coal in recent decades. But Trump has made rescuing the industry a key mission of his presidency, going so far as to float bailing out coal, along with the also-struggling nuclear power sector.
Trump’s efforts to save coal have been primarily concentrated in regulatory rollbacks and rule-weakening. In May, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule, replacing the Obama-era Clean Power Plan (CPP), which used the federal government to target the emissions produced by coal-fired power plants.
By contrast, the ACE rule largely turns that authority over to the states, in a move experts have argued would not save the coal industry but would likely drive up emissions.
New data similarly indicates that the administration’s efforts aren’t shifting coal’s trajectory, even short-term. S&P Global reported Monday that despite the ACE rule, several coal plant operators are still going ahead with scheduled retirements.
Those operators argue that even despite the rule change, the “dynamics” within the industry will not shift, such as the rising popularity of renewables and natural gas. Notably, more coal plants shuttered during Trump’s first two years in office than during the entire first term of the Obama administration.
Even as coal collapses, however, experts argue that more can be done to help impacted communities. Proposals like the Green New Deal, a blueprint for rapidly decarbonizing the economy, include calls for a “just transition” — a clause that would ensure protections for coal miners and other impacted fossil fuel workers. Many Democratic 2020 contenders have endorsed the Green New Deal along with calling for a just transition for frontline communities hit hard by efforts towards net-zero emissions.
But some unions have aligned against the Green New Deal, expressing concern over the impact of decarbonization on those workers, even as other unions — including Service Employees International Union (SEIU) — have backed the proposal.
As Monday’s study emphasizes, advance planning is needed as coal communities head towards collapse; this could include potentially a carbon pricing system that would see funds redistributed to those impacted.
“A new source of government revenue may be required to push a serious economic development program across the finish line,” the report says, underscoring that a “logical source of these funds would be a federal carbon price.”
Even that may be a hard sell in many communities. Trump has expressed no interest in a carbon tax and local efforts have struggled. Washington state failed last November to enshrine a carbon pricing effort after a record-breaking financial opposition effort from out-of-state oil companies. And last month, Oregon Republicans left the state in order to kill a similar effort.
Still, the coal industry is keeping close ties to the administration. Bob Murray, CEO of coal mining corporation Murray Energy, is hosting a private fundraising event for Trump’s re-election campaign later this month, according to Documented. The fundraiser will be held in West Virginia, one of the most coal-reliant communities.
A major American steelmaker has lost 70% of its market value since Trump slapped steep tariffs on the metal last year
Gina Heeb - Business Insider
Jul. 8, 2019, 12:12 PM
- Bloomberg reported Sunday evening that a 25% tariff on imports of the metal has accelerated the decline of some US mills.
- US Steel, a titan of the metal industry, has lost $5.5 billion in market value and idled two furnaces since Trump announced the move in March 2018.
- A divide based on the furnace technology companies use has widened over the past year, increasing challenges for companies like USS.
President Donald Trump has sought to make the US steel industry more competitive through protectionism, but tariffs levied last year have accelerated the decline of some of its largest players.
Bloomberg reported Sunday evening that a 25% tariff on imports of the metal has accelerated the decline of some of the mills Trump vowed to protect. The metal titan US Steel has lost $5.5 billion, or roughly 70%, in market value and idled two furnaces since the president announced the move in March 2018 on national security grounds.
US Steel had originally emerged as a rare darling of protectionist policies, with tariffs expected to increase US output and metal industry jobs. Trump last summer visited one mill in Illinois, where US Steel had originally planned to boost production as tariffs restricted foreign access to the market.
"The days of plundering American jobs and wealth — those days are over," he asserted to the Granite City crowd.
But the increase in production came at the same time that demand began to cool, eventually sending steel prices sharply lower. Growth in the US and elsewhere is expected to continue to fall in the coming months, as stimulus measures fade and trade tensions persist.
The divide created a complicated scenario for companies like US Steel, according to Bloomberg. That's because they use older and more costly equipment than companies such as Nucor, which run cheaper furnaces that can better compete in the new market.
"Are some companies going to suffer? Absolutely," Nucor Chief Executive Officer John Ferriola told Bloomberg in an interview, adding that Trump's actions sped up expected changes in the industry. "We'll see some capacity go away, I'm sure of it."
Bipartisan lawmakers and businesses have coalesced behind the need to address trade practices they say undermine American businesses. Some industry groups have stood by the use of blanket tariffs as a tool to win fairer trade agreements, while others argued they would ultimately risk pain for American businesses and consumers.
US Steel and Nucor did not immediately respond to emails requesting comment.
payback funnies
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what you see is what you get!!!
your share, idiot!!!!
