A New New Deal

Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933 proposed what came to be called the New Deal, two important parts of which were the Social Security System and the Works Program Administration, better known to us oldsters as the WPA. And he was hated for it, hated by mostly Republicans who thought he was taking too much power in the presidency and taking away too much from the states. We were, they claimed, heading for socialism which was just one step away from communism. We were in the middle of the Great Depression with nearly 10 million jobless, millions of desperate people criss-crossing the country begging for food and work from anyone who might have either to give. It was a time of Great Plains drought and Dust Bowl days with skies dark with dust storms. Our nation was in the middle of an economic disaster which threatened to bring our country to its knees.

The WPA, with federal money, provided jobs to heads of households who were out of work, jobs building bridges, highways, public buildings, schools, hospitals, airports. FDR with his federal programs saved us until WWII gave us an industrial impetus that took us back to economic stability.

Presently, our infrastructure is in dire need of a new New Deal, a new WPA supported by federal funds to repair what’s broken, to provide jobs to those who are jobless. And Barack Obama would probably be hated for doing so.

I’m confused by those who say that Obama’s eight years have been disastrous. When he took office in 2008, we were suffering from two Bush administrations, and the U.S. was teetering on the edge of another Great Depression with a double-digit jobless rate and Middle-Eastern wars from which we couldn’t seem to extricate ourselves. Eight years later, our economy is back to stability and the unemployment rate is around 5%. Nearly all Americans are now living a better life than they had eight years ago. This was accomplished despite a Republican majority in both Houses that was almost entirely obstructionist. Granted, we are still too much involved in the Middle-East, but no president could have gotten us disengaged from fighting the Islamist terrorist groups that threaten us and most of the rest of the world. And now, before he steps down, Barack Obama has the opportunity to implement a new WPA that would bring the unemployment rate even lower than it is now, that would repair an infrastructure that’s in dire need of repair. And the Republicans would probably hate him for doing so. And, if we’re not very careful, we might elect a man who could virtually destroy us as a nation and world leader. That man is Donald Trump.