America's Job Quagmire

When Franklin Roosevelt faced massive unemployment he established the WPA which put hundreds of thousands of Americans to work. The infrastructure created by the WPA (as well as the art, literature and music)is still enriching the lives of Americans in almost every state in the union.

A new WPA is just the ticket to redress the terrible problem of rising unemployment. And paying workers to do these jobs directly is cheaper, less administratively onerous and more effective than subsidizing the private sector to create employment.

Does anyone think there is any chance that we will see a new WPA under Obama?

Of course not.

When business interests criticized Roosevelt's concern about unemployment and the working poor, this is what Roosevelt said,

"Here and now I want to make myself clear about those who disparage their fellow citizens on the relief rolls. They say that those on relief are not merely jobless--that they are worthless. Their solution for the relief problem is to end relief--to purge the rolls by starvation. To use the language of the stock broker, our needy unemployed would be cared for when, as, and if some fairy godmother should happen on the scene.

You and I will continue to refuse to accept that estimate of our unemployed fellow Americans. Your Government is still on the same side of the street with the Good Samaritan and not with those who pass by on the other side."

And when Republicans criticized Roosevelt for enacting the WPA and other New Deal programs, this is what Roosevelt said (October 31, 1936, Madison Square Garden, New York City):

"We have not come this far without a struggle and I assure you we cannot go further without a struggle.

"For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away . . . Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent . . .

"We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace —business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

"They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

"Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me — and I welcome their hatred."

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