Math is not one of my mad skills.  The closest I got to math in high school geometry was taking census of the cows on the hillside across the football field while staring out the window daydreaming.

Even so, I think I can make sense of the numbers that show coal mining doesn’t add up in Tennessee.

A 51-page report from the West Virginia Center on Budget and Policy indicates coal mining in Tennessee actually costs state taxpayers.

Apparently, the only people benefitting from coal mining in Tennessee are the boot boy and his buddies.  The report found that the coal industry contributed about $1.1 million to the state budget in taxes and fees but the industry costs taxpayers $1.6 million in subsidies and expenses for mining regulation, reclamation and road repairs.

The coal industry contributed more than $300,000 to political campaigns in the past year.  The boot boy who would be governor was one of the major recipients of that plum pie. Perhaps that would explain why he and 15 of his senate buddies blocked a vote to halt mountaintop removal mining in Tennessee in the final hours of General Assembly session a few weeks ago.

Coal mining creates jobs in Tennessee? The report shows that no county in Tennessee depends on the coal industry for more than two percent of its total employment.  And, coal mining is not a positive economic engine for the state.  Factoring the costs of coal mining along with direct and indirect income from employment in coal mining, the revenue is $5.75 million while the expenditures total $8.74 million.  Wow, that’s a $2.9 million deficit expense for coal mining.

This is the totally crazy part of this whole thing: coal mining costs the state in revenue and at the same time is totally destroying the God-crafted hills of east Tennessee.

Boot boy, are you stupid?  No, you’re just taking care of someone other than the voters who put you in office.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 29th, 2010 at 4:50 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.