Appalachia needs something akin to a Marshall Plan, not a pittance.
The people of Appalachia and Middle America feel excluded from the conversation about their destiny. A feeling of hopelessness persists. Regions that once hosted bustling steel mills, auto plants and coal mines now house desolation and shuttered main streets.
Families cannot stay together because the young people must leave to find work. This only adds to the pain — because family counts in Middle America.
The piecemeal approach to tackling the persistent problems of Middle America in the past five decades is a study in failure. Misery and desperation have come to define communities with poverty, high unemployment and crumbling infrastructure.
A comprehensive plan and massive investment in Appalachia and Middle America would offer hope. The Marshall Plan turned around a devastated Europe after World War II — it can be done.
Where could funding be found for such a program?
Washington spends billions on other countries every year in foreign aid programs. Appalachia got $177 million from the Appalachian Regional Commission in 2019. If the political will existed, if Washington cared, something could be done.
Importantly, developing a plan must include input by the people of Middle America. Things have been left to the experts long enough. The Network organization hosted rural roundtables through 2019 and the beginning of this year. At the roundtables in 16 states, residents voiced a feeling of being neglected and misunderstood, their concerns dismissed by the officials elected to represent them.
Participants said solutions to their problems needed to be rural and community solutions.
Solutions to keep hospitals and clinics open in rural areas. Solutions encouraging entrepreneurs to move into distressed communities and support for residents who own and operate their own businesses. Solutions that bring better-paying jobs, not big-box retailers paying minimum wage, so that families can stay together.
Shrinking tax bases are starving basic services in Appalachia and Middle America — services like police, firefighting and schools. An infusion of federal money could save the foundations of rural communities.
For the Washington Beltway establishment, the decades-old answer is the same — throw them a few million for infrastructure projects every year via the ARC. It’s not enough.
What’s needed is a comprehensive plan, using every department of government, to rebuild infrastructure, retrain workers, keep essential services functioning and encourage redevelopment of the economy.
This editorial first appeared in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on Tuesday. This commentary should be considered another point of view and not necessarily the opinion or editorial policy of The Dominion Post.
