Unions, Obama kill coal country

“If someone wants to build a new coal-fired power plant they can, but it will bankrupt them because they will be charged a huge sum for all the greenhouse gas that’s being emitted.”

-Presidential Candidate Barack Obama, 2008.

As promised, Obama is decimating the coal industry. According to CNN Money, since his first term in office in 2009 “many coal companies shares have plummeted more than 90 percent, several companies have gone bust,” and The New York Times reports that coal-related employment has slid to their “lowest levels since the 1980s.”

There will be even less whistling while working if Obama’s proposed Clean Power Plan is implemented. In fact, there would have been about 125,800 fewer whistling workers if the Supreme Court hadn’t blocked the Plan and its cut to coal-related jobs on Feb. 9, 2016.

And it’s not just jobs that are being cut. Miners who’ve managed to cling to what’s left of the industry, have been forced to dish out money from their pay checks to finance the miners’ union, United Mine Workers, AFL-CIO. Union dues cost members nearly $13.5 million annually – over $1 million of these dues are spent by the union on political activities, according to the most recent data from Union Facts.

A majority of these politicking funds are handed to the Democratic Party, consequently funding Obama and his agenda – including the Clean Power Plan and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The coal miners are literally financing the bureaucracy that’s depleting their jobs. 

There’s light at the end of the tunnel. West Virginia has just become the 26th right-to-work state, meaning coal miners don’t have to be a part of the union anymore, or pay tribute money – feeding the beast that’s killing their own communities. 

The money that’s going to politicking can be left in the miners and their family’s pockets, saving them an average of $164 a month per member, or about $2,000 a year – almost two months of the average mortgage payment for families in Williamstown, West Virginia in 2015. 

But guess who’s about to be robbed next? Consumers. Don’t take my word for it, take Obama's:

“Coal-powered plants, you know, natural gas, you name it, whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers.”

– Presidential Candidate Barack Obama, 2008.

Higher energy costs. Fewer jobs. Empty Pockets. Obama wanted a legacy.

He’s got one.