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Washington Tells Moore ‘No.’ We Should Believe It · Commentary - TJ Meadows

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  Speaker 1: West Virginia has always appreciated the country doctor. You know,
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: the type, warm, smile, good bedside manner, personally invested in
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  Speaker 1: the patient. There's real value in that, but sometimes comfort
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  Speaker 1: becomes a liability. What we need right now is not
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  Speaker 1: another country doctor. We need a surgeon. Surgeons are different.
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  Speaker 1: They can seem cold, direct, maybe even a little harsh,
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  Speaker 1: but surgeons are not hired to make patients feel better.
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  Speaker 1: They're hired to actually make patients better. Congressman Riley Moore
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  Speaker 1: a joint talk line Friday, he deserves credit for securing
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  Speaker 1: federal dollars for water and sewer projects in his district.
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  Speaker 1: That's good news. He also asks Congress for fifty million
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  Speaker 1: to address long standing infrastructure problems in southern West Virginia.
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  Speaker 1: Washington's response, No, The hard truth is Southern West Virginia's
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  Speaker 1: water problems and many of its other challenges, will not
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  Speaker 1: be solved by the federal government. Congress may throw us
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  Speaker 1: a bone from time to time, but bones do not
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  Speaker 1: create sustainable economies. Counties like McDowell and Mingo face some
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  Speaker 1: of the toughest economic realities in America. Geography matters, access matters,
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  Speaker 1: The collapse of coal certainly matters. Whatever the cause, no
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  Speaker 1: federal appropriation can permanently fix the underlying problem. Even if
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  Speaker 1: Washington wrote the check, it would treat the symptoms, not
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  Speaker 1: the disease. Whether Congress intended to or not, it sent
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  Speaker 1: a clear message, West Virginia, this problem is yours to solve.
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  Speaker 1: Can the state solve it? Some of it? Perhaps all
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  Speaker 1: of it? Probably not. That leaves us with something. Politicians
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  Speaker 1: and communities alike tend to avoid hard decisions, maybe impossibly
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  Speaker 1: hard decisions. Governor Morrissey, legislative leaders, local officials, and communities
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  Speaker 1: stakeholder need to begin a serious conversation about the future
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  Speaker 1: of southern West Virginia, not after the next grant application,
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  Speaker 1: not next year now, because the longer we avoid the diagnosis,
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  Speaker 1: the harder the treatment becomes. Washington's answer may not have
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  Speaker 1: been the one Southern West Virginia wanted to hear, but
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  Speaker 1: it may be exactly the one it needed to hear.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes the first step toward cure is accepting the diagnosis.