Uploaded by YouTube user: FasttrackHistory, 30 January 2009

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By [1932] the Great Depression was raging, with unemployment rates rising to 25 percent.

To combat unemployment and alleviate poverty, the federal government engaged in a massive public works and jobs program through the Works Progress Administration (WPA).

Private markets weren’t about to create jobs, and the public sector became the employer of last resort. The job creation from the WPA provided survival and sustenance for millions of American families. Where is the contemporary WPA?

Absent public job creation, it is likely that the economy will not fully recover…

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Related on Past in Print:

Hey Obama, while you’re at it, bring back the CCC

                          

When they see footage in Michael Moore’s new film of FDR announcing his Second Bill of Rights, many Americans will wonder whatever happened to it. Harvey J. Kaye explains why we should honor his vision.

Michael Moore’s new film, Capitalism: A Love Story, not only takes on corporate power and greed in America. By featuring rarely seen footage of FDR calling for a “Second Bill of Rights” in January 1944 and of the Flint, Michigan, sit-down strikers fighting for their rights in 1937, the film also challenges our political passivity with the democratic ideals and struggles that made the men and women of the 1930s and 1940s the most progressive generation in American history. Conservatives and libertarians have rightly tried to portray Roosevelt and his New Dealers as revolutionaries. In the best American sense of the term, they were…

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The stock market reached a six-year low today. Why? Some blame loose talk (including that of former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan) about nationalizing the nation’s banks. Others blame Obama’s new plan for helping homeowners who may not be able to pay their mortgages. But the real culprit is the accelerating decline in aggregate demand — consumers, businesses, and exports. Companies are losing money because their customers are disappearing. That’s precisely why the stimulus is so important — indeed, why many of us fear it’s too small.

One of the oddest of right-wing claims is that FDR’s New Deal didn’t pull America out of the Great Depression, so Barack Obama’s “New New Deal” won’t, either. While it’s true that the New Deal didn’t end the Great Depression, three points need to be impressed on the hard-pressed conservative mind…

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In his weekly radio/YouTube address,  Barack Obama declared infrastructure renewal a major priority for his incoming administration.  The President Elect is fully aware that there exists an historic example of a proven mechanism to carry out such a task.  One that could employ millions while performing sorely needed repairs.

The Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) was the most popular program of the New Deal.  The federal program was created during FDR’s first hundred days, and was actually his second go-round with the concept.  His first was as Governor of New York.

The legacy of the CCC is quite remarkable.  From 1933 to 1942, “FDR’s ‘Peace’ Army” planted billions of trees, built roads, and other public structures.  In the process of doing their work the Corps also laid the foundations for modern conservation efforts, forest fire fighting & prevention, and flood abatement.

CCC Pillow Cover

The CCC was not without its critics in the 1930s, and Obama will face opposition should he revive the institution or something like it.  Labor organizations did not care for the $30 per month wage, of which $25 was automatically sent home to the workers’ families.  Other critics took issue with the militaristic overtones of the Corps lifestyle.

Both of the above points of contention never amounted to anything, and they are completely beside the point when it comes to our present economic predicament.  There are elements of the historical example that could be kept while others are discarded or improved.  Instead of employing high school dropouts, teaching them to read at the localities where they happened to be stationed, a new CCC could be directed at high school graduates with the promise of a college education as an incentive.

That’s just one example.  However, if Obama is to follow Roosevelt’s example he’ll need to act fast.  FDR acknowledged that the CCC wouldn’t have made it past the Congress if it weren’t for the dire state of the economy combined with a particularly passionate honeymoon period following his election.

Oh, wait…  That sounds about right.  Go for it, Barack.

                          

Nobel laureate Paul Krugman was around to remind Will of some history — that the economy improved after the New Deal, and that it was FDR’s attempt to balance the budget in 1937 (a move favored now by many conservatives) that then cut into that progress.
WATCH

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From the The New Yorker, 17 November 2008 post by, George Parker:

…Barack Obama’s decisive defeat of John McCain is the most important victory of a Democratic candidate since 1932. It brings to a close another conservative era, one that rose amid the ashes of the New Deal coalition in the late sixties, consolidated its power with the election of Ronald Reagan, in 1980, and immolated itself during the Presidency of George W. Bush…

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