Who Is Killing the Towns of Western Massachusetts?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

"It may be the governor. In the State House. With the lobbyists."

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Bu-but I thought the Republicans were excessively beholden to the interests of small-town bumpkins and jerkwater hicks and were effectively a rural interests party!

[JA]

I think rural America should get a basic income at this point

Rural America is getting sh**ttier every year and if someone dosent do something about it soon, these people will vote us into the stone age with them

Please. Just stop...

[Intell]

I think rural America should get a basic income at this point

Rural America is getting sh**ttier every year and if someone dosent do something about it soon, these people will vote us into the stone age with them

Yep, nice, stop.

[JA]

I think rural America should get a basic income at this point

Rural America is getting sh**ttier every year and if someone dosent do something about it soon, these people will vote us into the stone age with them

Please. Just stop...

What? This is a serious proposal. Rural America has been dying economically for 40 years and it get's worse every year. That's part of the reason they voted for a demagogue like Trump. They should get a basic income or a negative income tax return otherwise they will start to hold the country back due to resentment at being ignored

I didn't object to your policy proposal, only your phrasing that "these people will vote us into the Stone Age with them."

Now I'll object to your policy proposal. While I'm not opposed to a minimum income or negative income tax, I am against it when it's used as a way to paper over the problems facing a vast swathe of America due to a neglectful and destructive economic and political system that has ignored these communities for decades. They deserve investment and opportunity, not money thrown at them. These people want good jobs, safe towns, and an opportunity to enter the middle class. This can be achieved through extensive investments in infrastructure development, tax incentives for businesses to relocate or expand into these rural areas, and ensuring they have access to good k-12 schools, higher education, and trade schools. It also means restructuring our regulatory and tax system to favor small, local farmers and businesses, rather than national and multinational corporations. There's no reason we can't have people working on wind farms in rural Texas, doing web design in Appalachia, establishing high speed fiber optics in Wyoming, or building new roads, bridges, and hydroelectric plants in Upstate New York.

[Person Man]

I think rural America should get a basic income at this point

Rural America is getting sh**ttier every year and if someone dosent do something about it soon, these people will vote us into the stone age with them

Please. Just stop...

What? This is a serious proposal. Rural America has been dying economically for 40 years and it get's worse every year. That's part of the reason they voted for a demagogue like Trump. They should get a basic income or a negative income tax return otherwise they will start to hold the country back due to resentment at being ignored

I didn't object to your policy proposal, only your phrasing that "these people will vote us into the Stone Age with them."

Now I'll object to your policy proposal. While I'm not opposed to a minimum income or negative income tax, I am against it when it's used as a way to paper over the problems facing a vast swathe of America due to a neglectful and destructive economic and political system that has ignored these communities for decades. They deserve investment and opportunity, not money thrown at them. These people want good jobs, safe towns, and an opportunity to enter the middle class. This can be achieved through extensive investments in infrastructure development, tax incentives for businesses to relocate or expand into these rural areas, and ensuring they have access to good k-12 schools, higher education, and trade schools. It also means restructuring our regulatory and tax system to favor small, local farmers and businesses, rather than national and multinational corporations. There's no reason we can't have people working on wind farms in rural Texas, doing web design in Appalachia, establishing high speed fiber optics in Wyoming, or building new roads, bridges, and hydroelectric plants in Upstate New York.

It is not that easy.

The problem is that they want economic development and they don't want economic development.
Ever heard the term "we want change, just as long as things stay the same?"

A lot of people live in rural areas to avoid people. In fact, the reason why Democrats got someone elected Governor in Wyoming was because Republicans wanted to attract a Fortune 500.

 It is hard not to think of millions of hardworking people as wanting the rest of America to pay for their lifestyle choices. This is especially when many of them are so innocent, industious, and simple but the only jobs they want are jobs that most be progressively and  unsustainably subsidized each year.

[dead0man]

I think rural America should get a basic income at this point

Rural America is getting sh**ttier every year and if someone dosent do something about it soon, these people will vote us into the stone age with them

Yeah, 'cause those geniuses in the cities are always voting in great people who are leading us into a grand future

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I think some of you are missing the point of the article that the people in these small towns are in fact trying to take local responsibility and take control of their own destinies, and the big telecom companies and former Town of Swampscott Select Board member Charlie Baker aren't letting them.

[dead0man]

and the decline of urban America is mostly due to.....

anyway....I'm pretty sure the main thing killing rural America is that we need fewer and fewer people to make food, and I don't understand why this is supposed to be a bad thing.  We make more food than ever and do it with fewer people, this is a good thing.  City folks strange romanticism with "the family farm" is ignorant.  Farming sucks, just like factory work.  Yes, I understand those in the ivory towers think poor people love these gigs, and certainly some do....but the other 95% of us are smart enough to know hard and dangerous work when we see it.  There are not enough jobs for every dumb person to have anymore, at least not with our current culture.  Maybe if "full time" was 20 (or whatever, something well under 40) hours a week and there was a basic minimum income for everybody there would be plenty of jobs for all our dumbs that wanted to work, but that's not how it is.  This problem is only going to get worse and needs to be addressed sooner than later.  Trump going protectionist isn't going to help.  It might temporarily give a few more people jobs, but it's going to make everything cost so much more that it won't matter at all.

I think some of you are missing the point of the article that the people in these small towns are in fact trying to take local responsibility and take control of their own destinies, and the big telecom companies and former Town of Swampscott Select Board member Charlie Baker aren't letting them.

sorry.  That's bad, I disapprove.  States should give cities and counties more leeway and freedom.  On the other hand, states should let cities rot on the vine when the funk up too.  You can't do one without the other.  A private business and a state govt conspiring to restrict the liberty of a city is bad.

[Person Man]

and the decline of urban America is mostly due to.....

anyway....I'm pretty sure the main thing killing rural America is that we need fewer and fewer people to make food, and I don't understand why this is supposed to be a bad thing.  We make more food than ever and do it with fewer people, this is a good thing.  City folks strange romanticism with "the family farm" is ignorant.  Farming sucks, just like factory work.  Yes, I understand those in the ivory towers think poor people love these gigs, and certainly some do....but the other 95% of us are smart enough to know hard and dangerous work when we see it.  There are not enough jobs for every dumb person to have anymore, at least not with our current culture.  Maybe if "full time" was 20 (or whatever, something well under 40) hours a week and there was a basic minimum income for everybody there would be plenty of jobs for all our dumbs that wanted to work, but that's not how it is.  This problem is only going to get worse and needs to be addressed sooner than later.  Trump going protectionist isn't going to help.  It might temporarily give a few more people jobs, but it's going to make everything cost so much more that it won't matter at all.

I think some of you are missing the point of the article that the people in these small towns are in fact trying to take local responsibility and take control of their own destinies, and the big telecom companies and former Town of Swampscott Select Board member Charlie Baker aren't letting them.

sorry.  That's bad, I disapprove.  States should give cities and counties more leeway and freedom.  On the other hand, states should let cities rot on the vine when the funk up too.  You can't do one without the other.  A private business and a state govt conspiring to restrict the liberty of a city is bad.

This is a pretty good post. There simply aren't enough jobs in rural areas for rural areas to be sustainable....unless, as you alluded to, more Americans are open to be Third World Peasants, or we adapt maybe not far-left but hard-left labor policies.
Businesses colluding with states to takeover cities-
Isn't that what Republicans are doing now in Arizona, Wiscosin, and Ohio?

[dead0man]

It really depends on what "hard left labor policies" you're talking about.

[KingSweden]

I'm very in favor of states and municipalities getting creative with policy making. I'm skeptical of Seattles high new minimum wage, for example, but power to them for experimenting. This is an approach I think would benefit Democrats and I hope local control becomes part of their platform long term

The reason I'm equally skeptical of GOP rhetoric on the matter, then, is their attempts to coopt local control and dictate policy to cities. That's not effective local/small government.

[pbrower2a]

Rural America has an advantage over Urban America -- a lower cost of living. Infrastructure is cheaper; the two-lane blacktop that feeds towns of 10,000 some twenty miles apart is often wholly adequate for local traffic. A ten-lane expressway may be completely inadequate in northeastern New Jersey. Big cities must pay teachers more because good teachers have the skill set with which to do many other, more lucrative activities. They must also pay cops well enough to keep them from finding informal sources of income to supplement their inadequate pay.   Bribes from gangsters, basically. If you are in a small town and you have a teacher's license, what else can you do that pays well?  

So why would people live in those zones of high real estate prices (and of course rent) , traffic jams, and crowding? Certain activities, like multi-modal transportation (Chicago), high technology (San Jose), entertainment (Los Angeles and New York), centralized government (greater Washington), and energy (Houston) require the concentration of talented and competent  people. Automobile manufacturing (Detroit) and chemicals (St. Louis) used to be like that... but that is over, and that explains why Detroit and St. Louis are urban wrecks.

So why aren't places like southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky attracting refugees from high-cost, high-tax places like Boston and San Francisco? No attractions other than a low cost of living.  

[dead0man]

The coasties have stereotyped flyover country for....well, ever I guess.  A New Yorker doesn't even consider Duluth (or Omaha, Des Moines, Tulsa, Memphis, Madison, etc, etc) as an option, much less rural W.Virginia.  Why would they want to live with those ignorant, inbred racists in Boulder or Toledo?

[Devout Centrist]

Rural America has an advantage over Urban America -- a lower cost of living. Infrastructure is cheaper; the two-lane blacktop that feeds towns of 10,000 some twenty miles apart is often wholly adequate for local traffic. A ten-lane expressway may be completely inadequate in northeastern New Jersey. Big cities must pay teachers more because good teachers have the skill set with which to do many other, more lucrative activities. They must also pay cops well enough to keep them from finding informal sources of income to supplement their inadequate pay.   Bribes from gangsters, basically. If you are in a small town and you have a teacher's license, what else can you do that pays well?  

So why would people live in those zones of high real estate prices (and of course rent) , traffic jams, and crowding? Certain activities, like multi-modal transportation (Chicago), high technology (San Jose), entertainment (Los Angeles and New York), centralized government (greater Washington), and energy (Houston) require the concentration of talented and competent  people. Automobile manufacturing (Detroit) and chemicals (St. Louis) used to be like that... but that is over, and that explains why Detroit and St. Louis are urban wrecks.

So why aren't places like southern West Virginia and eastern Kentucky attracting refugees from high-cost, high-tax places like Boston and San Francisco? No attractions other than a low cost of living.  

Which is why the Sun Belt is a lot more attractive. AC makes life livable here and there's a lot more to do in the Southwest. Plus winters don't try to kill you.

[pbrower2a]

The coasties have stereotyped flyover country for....well, ever I guess.  A New Yorker doesn't even consider Duluth (or Omaha, Des Moines, Tulsa, Memphis, Madison, etc, etc) as an option, much less rural W.Virginia.  Why would they want to live with those ignorant, inbred racists in Boulder or Toledo?

New Yorkers can be as provincial as people in southeastern Kentucky. New York City creates its own way of life. Nice place to visit, but it would be tough adjusting to it.

I live in flyover country. I know how small-town life works. One has personal ties from childhood, or life is miserable. Cultural life is personal crafts or what happens to be available by electronic media. Considering that college graduates generally don't return except for family reunions or in economic distress...

We do have some contemptible racists. There are people who fly Confederate flags around here. (If I flew flags other than the US flag they would be a Union Jack and the current flag of Germany out of pride in heritage... the current German flag has nothing to do with Nazism except to signal a nation that has exorcised the most monstrous demons that any country has ever had). I'd burn a Confederate flag with a Nazi flag, a North Korean flag, a Soviet flag, and the flag of Saddam Hussein's Iraq together if I got a chance.

[DrScholl]

Let's remember that urban areas provide most of the GDP and revenue for the federal government. Rural areas get far more money back than they put in, so that is one advantage right there. The economy is not the same as it was many decades ago, yet you have some people refusing to adapt. What happened to personal responsibility? These rural areas seem to think the government should force companies to create jobs that are not economically viable anymore.

[dead0man]

Let's remember that urban areas provide most of the GDP and revenue for the federal government. Rural areas get far more money back than they put in, so that is one advantage right there. The economy is not the same as it was many decades ago, yet you have some people refusing to adapt. What happened to personal responsibility? These rural areas seem to think the government should force companies to create jobs that are not economically viable anymore.

while I generally agree with your wider point, the rural areas provide most of the food for the urban areas.  Sure, in a land of plenty money is more important than food, but food is awfully damn important too.

but yeah, if there is no work in BFE Iowa, then you've got to move to somewhere that has work.  Same thing for Detroit.  A lot of urban areas think the government should force companies to create jobs that are not economically viable anymore too.

[Deblano]

I think rural America should get a basic income at this point

Rural America is getting sh**ttier every year and if someone dosent do something about it soon, these people will vote us into the stone age with them

[JA]

Let's remember that urban areas provide most of the GDP and revenue for the federal government. Rural areas get far more money back than they put in, so that is one advantage right there. The economy is not the same as it was many decades ago, yet you have some people refusing to adapt. What happened to personal responsibility? These rural areas seem to think the government should force companies to create jobs that are not economically viable anymore.

while I generally agree with your wider point, the rural areas provide most of the food for the urban areas.  Sure, in a land of plenty money is more important than food, but food is awfully damn important too.

but yeah, if there is no work in BFE Iowa, then you've got to move to somewhere that has work.  Same thing for Detroit.  A lot of urban areas think the government should force companies to create jobs that are not economically viable anymore too.

That's somewhat sad, but definitely true. Capitalism allows for enormous innovations, which ultimately result in dramatic changes to the job market. There's a reason the Rust Belt has the name "Rust Belt." Sure, the free trade deals have likely hurt these regions, but with the advances in automation it's simply a fact that there would have been fewer factory jobs for workers each successive year. Like you said, the same applies with farming and food production. We need fewer farmers to produce more food. The level of productivity in the developed world is unprecedented and is leading to decreases in cost and increases in availability of all kinds of technologies, food, and so on. The unfortunate part is how many people are displaced as a result and how many less jobs are, and will be, available - especially for those without in-demand skills. Rural areas and cities whose economy was based upon now highly automated sectors are reeling and, unless they transform themselves, will continue to suffer. Look at Pittsburgh - it's manufacturing sector largely collapsed, but they successfully replaced it with healthcare. It's unfortunate, but that has been the fate of most once thriving Northern cities; they simply can't or won't adapt to the 21st century.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

They must also pay cops well enough to keep them from finding informal sources of income to supplement their inadequate pay.    

As if that's exclusively an urban problem.  I'm taking a tax prep course being taught by an IRS officer and as he does so, he lives up the course with examples from his work experience.  The topic that night was about what counts as income.  The IRS isn't the morals police, just the tax police, so they are required by law to keep private about the sources of income. So long as you reported the income and pay the tax on it, it doesn't matter if it was earned legally or not.

Anyway, back to my point. One of the stories he told involved an auditor who went out to audit what he thought was a construction company. It turned out it was a rural bordello. The madam had actually done a fairly good job of complying with the tax law. The depreciation on equipment in the playroom was allowed, she'd reported her income honestly, and issued 1099's to her subcontractors for the services they had done for the customers. However, the deduction as a business expense of the bribes given to the deputy sheriffs to stay away was denied, even tho she'd kept the otherwise necessary records to show to whom and when she paid them.

[The_Doctor]

They must also pay cops well enough to keep them from finding informal sources of income to supplement their inadequate pay.    

As if that's exclusively an urban problem.  I'm taking a tax prep course being taught by an IRS officer and as he does so, he lives up the course with examples from his work experience.  The topic that night was about what counts as income.  The IRS isn't the morals police, just the tax police, so they are required by law to keep private about the sources of income. So long as you reported the income and pay the tax on it, it doesn't matter if it was earned legally or not.

Anyway, back to my point. One of the stories he told involved an auditor who went out to audit what he thought was a construction company. It turned out it was a rural bordello. The madam had actually done a fairly good job of complying with the tax law. The depreciation on equipment in the playroom was allowed, she'd reported her income honestly, and issued 1099's to her subcontractors for the services they had done for the customers. However, the deduction as a business expense of the bribes given to the deputy sheriffs to stay away was denied, even tho she'd kept the otherwise necessary records to show to whom and when she paid them.

That is an amazing story.

[Person Man]

It really depends on what "hard left labor policies" you're talking about.

Shorter work weeks, welfare for all..

[Antonio the Sixth]

LOL @ Democrats in this thread simultaneously ignoring and proving Nathan's point.

[hopper]

Well people don't want move to Western Massachusetts that's whats killing that region of Massachusetts. People that move to Massachusetts want to move to Boston or its suburbs in Eastern Massachusetts.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Well people don't want move to Western Massachusetts that's whats killing that region of Massachusetts. People that move to Massachusetts want to move to Boston or its suburbs in Eastern Massachusetts.

Did you read the article, which is about some of the reasons why this is? People don't spring fully formed from the head of Zeus with the desire to move or not move someplace.