Heidi M Przybyla

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s silence on a battle over the health and pension benefits of retired U.S. coal miners is perplexing some — especially the miners who took center stage in his 2016 campaign.

On Tuesday, dozens of coal miners wearing matching United Mine Workers of America t-shirts huddled with lunch trays in a public cafeteria in the basement of a Senate office building, with just days to go until a stopgap measure funding their health insurance expires.

The U.S. House may reject a permanent fix to guarantee their health benefits, continuing the uncertainty they’ve faced since Congress passed a temporary fix in December. Though miners believe there is a bipartisan Senate deal on health care, there are no such assurances when it comes to pensions, which Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., says should be part of a separate pension reform legislative package.

In USA TODAY interviews with coal miners, several cited their states’ strong support for the billionaire businessman in November.

“A lot of our members supported Trump,” said Joseph Holland, a 68-year-old former miner from western Kentucky who works with local retirees. “I would like for him to step up and say ‘I want both the House and Senate to support this,’” he said. “I keep hoping and praying” and telling members to write Trump to say “I supported you, please stand by me.”

“We haven’t heard from him yet,” said Phil Smith, the union’s director of governmental affairs. “It would be helpful in terms of the negotiations process but also just in reassuring these retirees and those in the coal fields that his message still holds true, that he wants to help these communities,” said Smith.

The funding issue is one of many at stake in budget negotiations this week to keep the government funded, and Trump has been quiet on most of them.

Yet his choice to remain mum on the coal miners is notable since he made them the face of the “forgotten man” he vowed to prioritize once in office. Just before he was inaugurated, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., wrote Trump asking for his support on the health benefits issue in particular. His response back was a handwritten note, reading “I’m with the miners,”” Capito said.

Sen. Joe Manchin, a Democrat, has asked Trump several times for his advocacy, most recently in a Monday telephone conversation. The union has not gotten a response to a formal request to meet with Trump it sent to the White House last week.

“This is a big one. If we can’t keep the promise to the miners we made, my goodness what promise can we keep?” Manchin said. In 1946, President Harry Truman created a retirement fund and medical and hospital funds for miners to guarantee their health and retirement security. “Mr. President, now’s the time to step forward and call (House Speaker) Paul Ryan and reaffirm with Mitch McConnell this needs to be a permanent fix, not a temporary fix,” he said. Manchin estimates there are 12-15 Senate Republicans who are supportive. Yet in the House, leaders are considering a 20-month extension.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Budget Director Mick Mulvaney has indicated they are open to negotiating portions of a miner package. Among some congressional Republicans, there is also concern that if Congress shores up coal miner pensions it will set a precedent for other corporate pension funds struggling after the 2008 financial crisis and amid a crush of baby boom retirees.

Populist promises or fiscal restraint

The debate over coal miners is the latest example of the challenge Trump faces in delivering on his populist promises while remaining true to his party’s core values of limited government and fiscal restraint.

Trump is trying to fulfill his campaign promises to coal country by rolling back regulations including a rule to protect streams from coal-mining debris intended to encourage production. Those steps have “given them a little bit of hope,” Manchin said of miners who’ve made several trips to Capitol Hill since Trump’s inauguration.

Yet health and pensions concerns risk eclipsing those offerings to active miners. That’s because, based on numbers, retired miners have more political clout. The mine workers union has 89,000 retirees, while there are currently approximately 50,000 active miners.

Many of these same retirees, who’ve spent 30 years in underground mines, also regularly visit so-called Black Lung Clinics funded by the Affordable Care Act, which Republicans want to repeal. Since December, miners have lived in a state of anxiety, said Holland. While miners were informed through the union that a December funding agreement had been struck, about a month later members got a notice their benefits would again run out in four months.

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“It’s a big mental stress for these folks,” said Holland. “When you talk to a 75, 80-year-old man who’s been much of a man and worked all their life and had a hard life at that, and tears run down their face because they’re afraid they’re going to lose their health care, if it don’t touch you in the heart, nothing else will.”

Delma Battle, a 63-year-old retiree from Bessemer, Ala., another state that Trump swept last November, was similarly perplexed. “We were promised our health and pension. Now we’re retired and we’re fighting to keep it,” she said. “He (Trump) said he’d bring the coal mines back but he needs to take care of the pensioners first.”

Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat, is among the lawmakers who say there’s been a lot of behind-the-scenes pressure on Trump to be more vocal. “We’ve asked the president to speak out. He hasn’t,” he said. “I don’t understand why,” said Brown, a Democrat who's up for reelection next year.

Capito said while she is confident Trump is “with the miners,” it would also “be nice to have a public statement on it. I think his support is there.”

“This one’s so doable. And every time I’ve spoken to him he’s always been so supportive of miners,” said Manchin.