Dear Earl:
I’ve talked to people lately who claim the economy is “booming” in Buchanan County because they saw a few people driving new cars. Most people who buy new cars in this county pay for them with Social Security (aka “government checks”) or if they’re lucky, pension checks from a union job. They would get neither of these checks if it were up to the Republican party.
The only “boom” I see is at Southern Gap where the few “suckers and losers” who still pay taxes are paying for big buildings, where water, sewer, internet connections, paved roads, and “relief” from paying taxes are provided by public money that will then be turned over to “entrepreneurs” (private businesses) in exchange for “creating” a few minimum wage jobs. Any jobs “created” will be like those at the law school. Created as a direct result of taxpayer money. And I am sure the “entrepreneurs” will insist on a non-disclosure agreement to make sure taxpayers never find out where all their money went. This is not capitalism; at best it is “crony capitalism,” where those who know or are kin to those who make the decision get public money for what are supposed to be private businesses. This is what the Republican party used to refer to as “picking winners and losers in the marketplace.” An example of this is Walmart getting taxpayer financed subsidies, then Walmart runs companies like Magic Mart that didn’t get government help out of business.
The economy in Buchanan County was actually booming when I graduated from high school (“gradyated 6th grade”) in 1977. There were new car dealerships, businesses that sold lumber and other construction supplies — we even had a bowling alley. And anyone could get a good-paying job in the coal industry, mostly because the UMWA forced the coal operators to pay decent wages and benefits. Island Creek Coal Company alone had six big union mines in the county that employed from 350 to over 500 miners at each mine. And the occupant of the White House, Jimmy Carter, actually was a decent man who had some morals and principles instead of just preaching about them.
Someone show me where the Donald Trump / Morgan Griffith “booming” economy is. Trump claimed he could fix everything, including raising the coal industry from the grave. The only big coal mine I see in Buchanan County is Buchanan No. 1, and they have been there since the 1980s. And unlike the big union mines, their employees don’t get a pension or lifetime health insurance when they retire. Someone show me where Trump brought one new mine to Buchanan County.
Correspondence school lawyer Morgan Griffith claimed to be a big “job creator.” By my calculation, at $174,000 per year, taxpayers have paid Griffith over $2,600,000 in salary alone, yet no one can tell me where any jobs he created are. In over 15 years in office, show me one factory with good-paying jobs Griffith has brought to Buchanan County.
When Carter was president the parking lots at all the big union mines were filled with new cars and trucks; now people who see five new cars claim the economy is booming. In 2026, the average price of a new vehicle is nearly $50,000 before financing, with loan payments stretching up to 96 months (8 years). In 1977, new car loans were for 36 months or less.
The illusion of a booming economy is like a Trump Casino — built on credit and government subsidies, or as George Herbert Hoover Bush said about Reagan’s “trickle down” theory of economics, “nothing but smoke and mirrors.”
Just like all the businesses Trump bankrupted, a lot of the people with these big car loans will default on the payments. But, unlike Trump’s casino bankruptcies, they won’t be able to steal everything off the car then write it off on their taxes.
Donnie Farmer
Indian Grave Gap
