A PROPOS PIPELINES AND COAL

2.) The Black Lung program was originally meant to "compensate" coal miners with money for diseased lungs. The money is raised by an excise tax on deep-mined coal, and a smaller one on surface-mined coal (which does not cause the disease). The program pays out close to $2 billion a year and is headed for bankruptcy, mainly because Congress wrote the qualifications for support so loosely that some recipients, far from having black lung, have never been underground. The administration asked for the fund to be saved, and amid much shouting about Reagan's starving the widows and orphans, Congress passed a bill just before adjourning for Christmas, doubling the tax and slightly tightening the qualifications for recipients. So overwhelmed by compassion were the legislators that they smuggled in a clause effectively raising their own salaries (abolishing the $3,000 limit on tax-deductible living expenses). Such information is not easy to come by; we obtained it from one of the honest souls in the House, our old favorite Dr Ron Paul (D-Tex), one of less than 50 Congressmen to vote against the bill.