Harold Meyerson: A Jobs Lesson from the New Dealers
The Democrats have shifted their focus, they tell us relentlessly, to jobs, jobs, jobs.
Would that they had.
In fact, the job proposals coming from the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress are far too small to seriously reduce the massive unemployment created when the financial and housing bubbles popped. Many Democratic leaders know that, and some want to do more.
The current proposals, I was told this past weekend by George Miller, chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee and probably Speaker Nancy Pelosi's most trusted counselor, "are not adequate to the scope of the problem. You still have a big gap between the resources we're offering and where we need to be. Clearly, more has to be done."...
...In the winter of 1933-34, with unemployment close to 25 percent, FDR aide Harry Hopkins put an astonishing 3 million people on the federal payroll in just 90 days, repairing airports, military bases and schools. This in a nation of just 130 million people -- the equivalent today would be around 7.5 million. Hopkins and Roosevelt faced the same criticisms -- over the size of the deficit and the growth of the federal government -- that Obama and the Democrats face. But the New Dealers persisted throughout the 1930s, reducing unemployment; building roads, airports and bases; and securing the allegiance of voters for decades to come.
Today's Democrats seem to lack the urgency, compassion and spine of their '30s forebears. Obama's proposals fail to challenge the conservative narrative that government can't engender worthwhile economic activity, so all we can do is cut taxes on business and hope for the best. No narrative is more in need of challenging, but Obama has demurred at the very moment he must make the affirmative case for government. With the private sector economically unable to produce jobs, and the public sector politically blocked from doing so, we are condemned to a long, dismal decade.
Read entire article at WaPo
Would that they had.
In fact, the job proposals coming from the Obama administration and the Democratic Congress are far too small to seriously reduce the massive unemployment created when the financial and housing bubbles popped. Many Democratic leaders know that, and some want to do more.
The current proposals, I was told this past weekend by George Miller, chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee and probably Speaker Nancy Pelosi's most trusted counselor, "are not adequate to the scope of the problem. You still have a big gap between the resources we're offering and where we need to be. Clearly, more has to be done."...
...In the winter of 1933-34, with unemployment close to 25 percent, FDR aide Harry Hopkins put an astonishing 3 million people on the federal payroll in just 90 days, repairing airports, military bases and schools. This in a nation of just 130 million people -- the equivalent today would be around 7.5 million. Hopkins and Roosevelt faced the same criticisms -- over the size of the deficit and the growth of the federal government -- that Obama and the Democrats face. But the New Dealers persisted throughout the 1930s, reducing unemployment; building roads, airports and bases; and securing the allegiance of voters for decades to come.
Today's Democrats seem to lack the urgency, compassion and spine of their '30s forebears. Obama's proposals fail to challenge the conservative narrative that government can't engender worthwhile economic activity, so all we can do is cut taxes on business and hope for the best. No narrative is more in need of challenging, but Obama has demurred at the very moment he must make the affirmative case for government. With the private sector economically unable to produce jobs, and the public sector politically blocked from doing so, we are condemned to a long, dismal decade.