The Government Can Create Jobs
The Republicans keep saying the government can’t create jobs. That’s baloney.
Tens of thousands of unemployed Americans were glad to find work under President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Depression-era New Deal programs of the 1930s. Their labor benefited the whole country, too.
They earned paychecks from Uncle Sam for constructing or improving streets, roads, highways, airports, courthouses, city halls, schools, post offices, libraries, fire stations, baseball and football stadiums, jails, state armories, band shells and parks. They planted trees, fought soil erosion and brought electricity to even the remotest farms.
They wrote history books and travel guides. They painted murals in public buildings, put on plays and concerts and taught people to read.
They were proud of their work, much of which survives, including the Works Progress Administration-built McCracken County courthouse in Paducah, Ky., where I teach history at the local community and technical college. (My grandfather and uncle were part of WPA crews that cleaned up Paducah after the Great Ohio River flood of 1937.)
Right-wing Republicans of old said FDR was a “socialist” because he believed Read the rest of this entry »
The Tea Party Isn’t Union Friendly
Here’s what a commenter posted recently at the AFL-CIO Now blog:
I am a progressive democrat, former member of three unions and my run was heavily funded by unions. I was beaten by a right-wing Republican because rank-and-file union members voted for my opponent.
And:
Until union members stop drooling over Glenn Beck and his ilk, unions will continue to be rendered impotent.
What was it the immortal Pogo said? “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Unemployed Workers Have Lifeline Because of Frances Perkins’ Legacy
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With U.S. unemployment at 8.5 percent in March, the highest rate in 25 years, more than 6 million Americans are making ends meet because of the idea and determination of the nation’s first female Cabinet member, Frances Perkins, a “canny but little-known social worker” who became President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s labor secretary during the Depression.
In a Point of View guest column at the AFL-CIO website, Kirstin Downey, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist at The Washington Post, says the vital need for many New Deal programs is especially clear now as we struggle through our current economic crisis.
Downey, author of The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience, says Perkins and Roosevelt “propelled into existence” the unemployment insurance system, part of the package of social safety proposals born in the New Deal, including Social Security. Perkins brought her drive and commitment to the effort, and Roosevelt won the political support that allowed the package to pass, Downey says.
