Lakhota
Diamond Member
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- #61
West Virginia struggles with the exact problems that Biden’s spending bill aims to fix.
West Virginia has long been synonymous with rural poverty and, today, its median income is the nation’s second lowest, behind only Mississippi.
For much of the 20th century, that bred public support for muscular government action and led to the election of Democratic senators like Robert Byrd, who used his long tenure on the Appropriations Committee to secure for the state more than $10 billion worth of public works, and Jay Rockefeller, who championed Medicaid and helped develop the federal Children’s Health Insurance Program. Today, roughly one in four West Virginians get medical coverage through those programs.
But like the rest of Appalachia and the South, West Virginia has increasingly elected Republicans. West Virginia’s Republicans haven’t crusaded for smaller government in the way, say, former House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) once did, but they also have not supported major expansions of government programs, even as the state’s needs have quite obviously grown.
The national shift of more women into the workforce has increased the demand for child care, while an aging population living with more disabilities has increased the demand for long-term care, including home and community supports that let elderly and disabled people live in private homes and stay out of institutions. The latter need is especially acute in West Virginia, where the proportion of residents older than 65 is third highest in the nation.
All of that helps to explain why, in a recent report card on “care policies” by The Century Foundation, West Virginia was one of five states to get an F. The survey considered the quality, affordability and availability of a variety of programs, including child care and home care and paid leave for workers.
And although even the low-scoring states had some strong programs ― West Virginia, for example, has won praise for its universal pre-kindergarten initiative ― the overall level of support in these are, according to the report, “leaving families to scramble to manage work, care and family, creating impossible conflicts that lead to economic insecurity, poor health, added stress, and growing inequality.”
Much more at the link below...
Here's How Joe Manchin's State Stands To Benefit From The Legislation He's Blocking
West Virginia struggles with the exact problems that Biden's spending bill aims to fix.www.huffpost.com
Manchin is hurting West Virginia. He seems to be using spending and inflation as his excuses for blocking Biden's legislation. He is even against the For the People Act to protect voting rights. He also seems to be hung up on getting Republican support and defending the filibuster. What do you think?
West Virginia residents want this legislation! The polls show that.