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Seedersandleechers

(3,044 posts)
Tue Apr 18, 2017, 05:52 AM Apr 2017

This Alabama town is rebounding but Trump could change that

Snip: “I told him, you realize you may end up uninsured and dead because you voted for him?” she said. “But it doesn’t seem to matter.”

Snip: There have been signs Trump is losing his grasp of that core constituency with a historically low approval rating during his first three months in office.

But in northwest Alabama, voters like Marsha Jeter remain faithful.

“We needed someone in office that cannot be bought,” she said.

“I think he will bring back jobs, and I truly believe he wants to make America great again.”

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/16/muscle-shoals-alabama-trump-budget-appalachian-regional-commission

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This Alabama town is rebounding but Trump could change that (Original Post) Seedersandleechers Apr 2017 OP
"Trumps budget would all but guarantee the closure Hortensis Apr 2017 #1

Hortensis

(58,785 posts)
1. "Trumps budget would all but guarantee the closure
Tue Apr 18, 2017, 07:56 AM
Apr 2017
of the area’s regional airport, scale back funding for job training, and leave the local tourism office without critical grant money.

Most crucially, Trump’s fiscal plan would eliminate two federal agencies, the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) and Delta Regional Authority (DRA), that invest millions of dollars annually toward boosting not simply Alabama’s rural communities but also many of the other rural states populated with the president’s most ardent supporters.

Spanning 13 states, the ARC covers a 205,000 sq mile region from the mountains of New York state to the Mississippi gulf coast. In less than two years, the ARC has poured upward of $11m into Alabama alone – including a grant of roughly $1m awarded last year to the Shoals Entrepreneurial Center, which by supporting startup companies has proved an epicenter for economic development in the region.

It might seem like a paltry amount, said Giles McDaniel, the center’s executive director, but the expected return on investment is $10m, the creation or retention of 110 jobs and the launch of 20 new businesses.

I've often thought of what would happen to these states if the flow in of money were turned off. Redistribution of wealth from wealthy to poor states is the reason why this whole region isn't living at "third-word" level. Rural electrification, rural running water, eradication of epidemic disease, modern hospitals, universal education were all brought to this area by federal programs and maintained with the help of federal money.
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