How President Trump has failed rural Pennsylvania
If there is one thing that I learned growing up in rural Orefield, it is how to be self-sufficient. We had a well that we maintained to ensure a clean water source. We had oil delivered to provide us with heat (and used kerosene heaters in the barn).
We had a plow to clear the snow off our driveway and neighborhood streets. My father kept a number of guns at the ready for the occasional wild intruder.
As a child growing up in this situation, I saw nothing from the government — only the sweat of my father and mother to keep our household going.
I left Orefield to go to college and only visit occasionally now. When I do, my neighborhood looks the same, if not a little overdeveloped from what I remember. But one significant difference lately is the number of banners, flags and placards in support of Trump’s reelection that I see.
I understand the gut reaction to Trump — he is anti-government, anti-establishment, and he strives to protect the freedoms that I grew up with. He isn’t coming for our guns, overtaxing us or trying to impose unnecessary regulations upon us. He leaves the rural folk alone.
But I’ve come to realize a few things since he came to office. First, he is weakening the laws that protect the groundwater that we used to draw from our well, and that many residents pipe into their houses from the city water supply. That could very easily turn Orefield or greater Allentown into the next Flint, Michigan.
Second, he is trying to cut $8.5 billion — about 12% — from the federal
Education Department budget, while creating a $5 billion fund to help pay for private schools for some children. I spent most of my time in public school but graduated from a private high school, and the quality of education was vastly different. If anything, much more funding needs to go to public schools to support our hardworking teachers and students.
And third, he is not lightening the tax burden of ordinary citizens. His tax cuts favored wealthy Americans, just like his other policies are propelling a rapid rise on the stock market, where many lower-income Pennsylvanians have little or no holdings.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the household income for rural households was about 4% less than the
median for urban households. About 13% of people in rural areas live below the official poverty thresholds.
President Trump has failed rural Pennsylvania. His anti-government agenda has begun to take away the invisible force that I never understood while growing up there. Government protects the environment — that is not something citizens can or will do on their own.
Government provides funding and standards for public education. Government builds the roads and bridges that my father and I plowed. Government took care of my mother with Medicare and Social Security when my father passed. And government ensured free and fair markets for our neighborhood farmers to sell their goods and for me to buy the occasional toy at the Lehigh Valley Mall.
It turns out, government was more important than I realized. And now that it is under threat, I felt the need to express my concern about the direction this election is headed.
Joe Biden is a moderate Democrat — from Scranton, no less. He is not coming for anyone’s guns or implementing massive tax increases.
He is advocating a return to normalcy that includes reversing Trump’s tax cut for the rich that the poor are paying for, investing in American infrastructure that will create tons of jobs in rural America, and using smart tools to combat this pandemic.
This is not a fight between good and evil. It is a fight between normal and abnormal. We have been living in an abnormal world for too long. It is time to look out for our children and protect their future — not from the government, but from the man running it.
For my sake and for the sake of all my relatives still living in Pennsylvania, I urge you to put that gut reaction aside and think for a moment about what you are risking in this election and whether the rich man’s president is really who you want in your corner.