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February 8, 2010
Exclusive: Applying the Lessons of History: A New WPA
During times of national crisis, leaders are called upon to lead. They are expected to lead. We now enter the second year of the administration of “hope and change” but there appears to be a deep disconnect between the governed and the governing.
It was with growing dismay and disillusion that all politics at the nation's capital were subsumed by the failed "Health Care Insurance Reform" thrust upon the country by the ruling party. Even now, the stock market teeters just above 10,000 on bad news and more to come, and the recent election of Scott Brown to represent that formerly all “blue state” of Massachusetts in the Senate signaled the rejection of the Health Care Reform and of the tunnel vision and denial coming from Washington. Yet the message from the White House and the Congress is not one of recovery but more of the same.
“Health Care Reform” appears to be dead to the entirety of the country but for the executive branch at Washington and their supporters in the Congress. This is a dangerous disconnect and leaves more critical and pressing matters unaddressed and unresolved.
The unemployment situation and the economic decline of our country (but for some bailed-out incompetent institutions on Wall Street) are signals to the president that drastic action must be taken (and rapidly) to alleviate the suffering of the people. Instead, we continue to hear talk about “health care reform;” this is sham leadership. This failure on the part of the administration to effectively lead the country out of these crises will likely have devastating consequences.
Leadership has always been about character, not academic experience or accolades (be they earned or not). The foundation of American leadership has always been based on the ability to listen, to weigh alternatives, and guide the nation on the most effective course – characteristics now shown to be absent in the present administration. In times past, our leaders guided the nation through worse crises than the ones we currently face – a seemingly perfect storm of difficulties and disappointments, dangers and deceits. We should look to our past once again for guidance.
The staggering inability of the Obama administration only one year into its rule to deal with these numerous crises, even with control of both houses of Congress, may say more about our higher education system than anything else – but that lesson has yet to be verified.
What is sure is that our executive branch leaders and their sycophants in Congress, most with expensive and formerly impressive academic degrees from once respectable institutions whose import and effectiveness are now all in doubt, have failed in the fundamental concern of education itself. The academic credentials of the present administration are most impressive, yet the holders of these degrees fail to impress with resolutions and resolute leading by example. There is no “follow me!” rhetoric of leadership to victory, only the dull thuds of “obey,” and “well, you folks don’t know what is good for you, but I sure do!”
For centuries it has been understood and accepted as valid, only to be questioned in recent decades, that a command of history and the ability to learn its lessons is a fundamental mark of an "educated person." Now, we no longer have standards by whichto determine if a person is properly and thoroughly educated or if they are rather merely "degreed." This abandonment of educational standards carries a serious price which we are now paying and will continue to pay long past the resolution of this crisis-after-crisis period in our history.
Perhaps there are no formal courses in our institutions that instruct our students how to apply the lessons of history once high office is attained. However, there once was held the common belief that with wisdom, (which formerly was expected to be a bi-product of graduation from our best institutions of higher learning), a leader with the moral and intellectual tools (honed at university) with which lessons from the past can be gleaned would lead us on the right paths. The light of this notion is dimming as there is now so little basis upon which it can remain lit.
Most importantly, there are important lessons from our history that we can use, but they are all ignored or never broached. This is not wisdom, but folly.
We are now engaged in a great civil and economic crisis whose historical precedents provide us with guidance and with points to ponder from which new solutions (based upon the old) may be devised. The ridiculous and oppressive obsession of the president with "Health Care Reform" and its attendant disastrous distractions has allowed the current economic crisis (and others) to fester and disastrously grow.
The administration has expanded perhaps all of its political capital on this failed plan hashed out in secrecy and derided by most reasonable people across the land on both sides of the political spectrum. This failure is seen most clearly in the arrogance and aggressivenesswith which this expensive, ineffective, and unwanted plan was shoved down the collective throats of the American people, stifling the cries that would have issued forth to "resolve the economy!" and “jobs!” While our brilliantly over-educated leaders demonstrate their lack of commonsense, the font from which American democracy has long sprung, the lessons of history continue to be hidden, not discussed.
The unemployment rate in the United States now stands at approximately 10 percent. Some analysts suggest that the actual number is likely much higher even to 15 percent or more. The "Stimulus" has stimulated Wall Street but left Main Street with shuttered businesses and little opportunity for people to find employment and companies with little access to credit as banks continue to hold back from lending. The TARP program, the bank bailout, was meant to both save banks and financial institutions and encourage them to return to lending (thought it regrettably does not force them). It has failed. As with the expected but mythical “peace dividend” after the fall of the Soviet Union there are few dividends for the American people from the “Stimulus” and “TARP;” it is past time to try other solutions.
The watchdog charged with monitoring the government's $700 billion bailout unleashed one of his harshest criticisms of the program to date, questioning its overall effectiveness.
In his latest quarterly report to Congress, special inspector general Neil Barofsky said that the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, has failed to boost bank lending as well as halt the spread of foreclosures -- two key aims of the sprawling program. – CNN and American Thinker
With an apparently stimulated but waveringWall Street and a stagnant and struggling Main Street it must be asked: Upon what is the present Wall Street "recovery" based? If unemployment remains high, and home foreclosures continue at a record pace, then the fundamentals of the economy continue to be sour and not “stimulated.” It appears clear that there is no proper "recovery" from recession at all if job losses continue at their staggering rates.
The obscene bonuses of bailed out Wall Street executives are really a distraction from more important matters, but they demonstrate a disconnect of Wall Street with the wider society. This disconnect has rarely been so obvious. The White House addresses this issue in the populist manner of reasonable outrage but misses the point. If there is no foundation for believing that the country's economy has recovered – because unemployment continues to grow and no job anywhere is "safe" – then the Wall Street advance may well be a bubble, an advance built on speculation and possibly falsified data. If and when this bubble breaks (if it is a bubble), there will be a new recessional dip that will bring us to a "double dip recession." This will be a disaster for all.
The potential for further economic nightmares are reason enough for the U.S. government to use its organizational and economic might at home to reduce the effects of the current recession and hopefully offset any future “double-dip” (or worse). There is no structure in American society with the national scope and power greater than the federal government; certainly, such reach is one of the purposes of government – to respond during times of national crisis. We are in a national crisis and effective action has not yet been taken to help the families of America. The lessons of history have been ignored and must be no longer.
FDR is, regardless of political opinions on either side of the aisle, considered by many historians to have saved American capitalism from the Great Depression.
The "Great Depression" is often discussed today in that "we were this close to being in the second 'great depression!’" and other such excessive rhetoric (though it may be true), but little else of the comparison is mentioned. How did FDR get millions of unemployed Americans back to work on an emergency basis and improve infrastructure and cultural programs across the country? He did it with the WPA, the Works Progress Administration.
The Works Progress Administration (WPA) was formed in 1935 (it existed for eight years) with a mandate to be, as he put it in his announcement of the program, “self-liquidating and self-diminishing.” Extraordinary economic crises and devastating unemployment levels demand aggressive and effective solutions. We have the model for a solution – it is called the WPA.
By March, 1936, the WPA rolls had reached a total of more than 3,400,000 persons; after initial cuts in June 1939, it averaged 2,300,000 monthly; and by June 30, 1943, when it was officially terminated, the WPA had employed more than 8,500,000 different persons on 1,410,000 individual projects, and had spent about $11 billion. During its 8-year history, the WPA built 651,087 miles of highways, roads, and streets; and constructed, repaired, or improved 124,031 bridges, 125,110 public buildings, 8,192 parks, and 853 airport landing fields. (source)
A “New WPA” would be, like its predecessor, a temporary emergency measure whose purpose is to rapidly get millions of Americans back to work. There can be little question that the core of the failure of the current so-called "recovery" is the ongoing and non-diminishing unemployment rate. While Wall Street numbers rise (for now), the present and future dreams of the American working people diminish and, in many cases, are destroyed. We are at a cross-road with few aware that options are available. Let us create a new WPA and get the people back to work.
The Obama administration has,on many occasions, touted the new as yet largely mythical but environmentally friendly "green economy" though such a sector does not now widely exist. The government could, for example, create both the industry and the market for this new economic sector fueled by a "jobs bill" called "the New WPA". This could be but one component of a new Works Progress Administration.
This new initiative would, like the 30's version "... make a real and lasting contribution –but would not vie with private firms." A new WPA could “jump start” the economy, get millions back to work, improve national infrastructure and create both an entirely new economic sector(s) and new domestic and foreign markets for alternative energy sources. This would unite the green initiative (environmentalism) with the Green Initiative (putting money well-earned into the pockets of Americans who need it).
The constructive possibilities for a new WPA are endless. With millions of people back at work building, improving, and creating such a program could be the cornerstone of a re-emergence of American economic initiative backed by the US government. We still drive over WPA bridges and roads, and enjoy the results of WPA cultural projectsacross the country. The long-term and short-term benefits of such a project could be astounding.
As the private sector recovers, the public sector would keep millions of American workers at work, earning money and adding to the life of the nation, so that when the program expired after a pre-set deadline the workers with their experience and pride could return to the private sector. We have our history, our national character of hard work and initiative and the path before us for a possible solution to a growing economic crisis - it is immoral to take no action to bring relief to millions of Americans suffering on the sidelines with no hope for respectable and rewarding work.
We live during a time of political, cultural, economic, and security crises; it is a "perfect storm" of difficulty and challenges. During such times when our "best and brightest" fail, and our people know not where to look – we should look to our past to find the answers that we need.
It has been said recently that an attack on Iran will savethe Obama presidency. Such an attack may be necessary rather than discretionary and may not "save the presidency," though it may save the country and our allies from Iranian nuclear assault.
What will likely revive/save the current presidency is a clear and determined resolution to relieve the suffering of the American people and gather around him the most capable of people who may not have doctorates from Ivy League institutions but do have degrees from the "college of hard knocks."
The operational and organizational details of a new WPA must be determined at some future time (but soon). What is most important is that a new regime will be put in place, based upon the successful model of the Works Progress Administration of the FDR presidency that will put Americans to work in their millions, improve and upgrade national infrastructure. Such a program would build upon the foundation of innovation and value that will benefit the country in the short term and the wider world in the long term.
As the so-called "stimulus" and bank bailouts have supported the survival of institutions and not individuals and families it is long past time to support Americans directly with the power of the federal government. As each day passes and warning signals continue to ring we run out of options.
Let us look to a past program marked by success and the value and longevity of its creations. The partisans of one side or the other may balk at the revival of a depression-era fix. However, such partisans will turn silent when the challenge to present evidence of a fundamental recovery and a renewed vigor in the economy of the nation cannot be answered. Such evidence is scarce and difficult to find because it likely does not exist.
Our rich history of success, hard work, initiative and innovation is the mine from which we shall recover the gold standard of prosperity. To leave such a mine untapped is beyond explanation, it is simply wrong.
FamilySecurityMatters.org Contributing Editor D.L. Adams is an analyst and historian and a co-founder of SIOA.
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