Tag: WPA

Sep 06 2010

When are we going to “Nation Build” in our OWN Nation?

When are we going to “nation build” in our own nation?

What are we waiting for?

Each bridge to fall down,

Every road to turn back to gravel,

Water mains to burst,

Grids to burn out?

To say nothing about the Investments in

Schools, and Computers, and Networks.

Small Businesses, Parks, EcoSystems, and Science?

and another thing, if “9-11 changed the world”,

when are we going to change our “soft targets”

to prevent the next 9-11?

All these Projects spell JOBS.

All these Projects are an Investment in OUR Future.

They are NOT a Hand Out.

They are Protecting Our OWN.

Another Labor Day has arrived, with FAR TOO MANY Citizens,

having FAR TOO LITTLE to Celebrate …

Jun 12 2010

Book Review: Leighninger’s Long-Range Public Investment (2007)

Book Review: Leighninger, Jr., Robert D. Long-Range Public Investment: The Forgotten Legacy of the New Deal. 1st ed. 1 vol. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2007.

(crossposted at Orange and Firedoglake)

(Inscription found on the Claremont, California post office)

Feb 24 2010

CBO: Stimulus DID create Millions of Jobs

There was some good news from the CBO today:

CBO: Stimulus bill created up to 2.1 million jobs

By ANDREW TAYLOR, The Associated Press – Feb 23, 2010

WASHINGTON — The economic stimulus law added between 1 million to 2.1 million workers to employment rolls by the end of last year, a new report released Tuesday by congressional economists said.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office study also said the $862 billion stimulus added between 1.5 to 3.5 percentage points to the growth of the economy in 2009.

[…]

CBO projects that the stimulus measure to have a greater impact this year, boosting gross domestic product [GDP] by 1.4 to 4 percentage points and lowering the unemployment rate by 0.7 to 1.8 percentage points.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…

And CBO is projecting even more good news this year, due to the Stimulus Jobs Bill …

Jan 27 2010

Putting People to Work: HR 4290 — NOW, not Someday

Putting People back to work, takes more than rhetoric — it takes Action.

It takes Dollars. It takes investing in Main Street — for real.

It takes turning those Unemployment Checks into Paychecks!

It take compassion and guts. Putting People back to work takes HR 4290.

Rep. Phil Hare (D-Ill.) writes in a 12/03/09 op-ed:

“Second, I intend to introduce the New Deal for a New Economy Act (H.R. 4290), legislation that creates a hybrid of Roosevelt’s WPA and an expanded version of the Conservation Corps of the 1970s. This bill will authorize a multiyear grant program administered by the Department of Labor to provide funding for the creation of resource management positions on federal and state lands, public works projects on the state and local level, and public interest work with community-based nonprofit organizations. This legislation would provide a lifeline to the many Americans who find themselves out of work and out of hope… “

http://fullemployment.blogspot…

Nov 08 2009

It’s Time for a WPA — It’s Time to fix that Leaky Roof

The Problem: Unemployment, is just supposed to keep getting worse:

Unemployment rate rises to 10.2%

It’s the first time it has hit double digits since 1983.

By Don Lee and Jim Puzzanghera — Nov 7, 2009

Not since 1983, after a double-dip economic downturn had sent the auto, steel and housing industries plunging, has the jobless rate gone so high. And many economists predict that it will go higher still in coming months — and remain high for most if not all of next year.

Some 15.7 million workers now have no jobs, the government said in releasing its monthly unemployment report, and an estimated 5 million more are working fewer hours and drawing smaller paychecks than they were before the country fell into the worst recession in a generation.

http://www.latimes.com/busines…

Funny, you’d think that a Country with SO Much to Fix, in the Backlog, could find SOMETHING for ALL those Millions TO DO?

Oct 26 2009

We Need a New WPA, to “Bridge” Workers with Hope

The Problem: Unemployment, is just supposed to keep getting worse:

U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Rose More Than Forecast

By Shobhana Chandra

Oct. 22, 2009  (Bloomberg) — More Americans than forecast filed claims for unemployment benefits last week, a reminder that the labor market will be slow to recover.

Initial jobless applications rose by 11,000 to 531,000 in the week ended Oct. 17

[…]

Economists project the unemployment rate will reach 10 percent by the first quarter of 2010, underscoring the risk to consumer spending, the biggest part of the economy. Companies cutting costs remain reluctant to hire, even as they’ve eased dismissals from levels seen earlier this year.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/…

I heard a news Report this weekend that the +10% is expecting to last throughout most of 2010 too … Uh Oh!

Feb 23 2009

Second Class Citizens

This is another entry in my New Deal pictorial series.  It just takes a roundabout route to get there.  

We start a generation before the Great Depression, as Seattle photographer Edward Curtis was traveling the west for his epic photographic record of Native Americans.  This may be the best known of his of his thousands of images, each contact printed from 14×17 inch glass plate negatives, and rendered in copper plate photogravure for limited edition publication:

     

It’s Cañon de Chelly in Navajo country near Chinle, AZ, photographed 1904.  There’s a lot of controversies and opinions on Curtis’s work, which might rightly be called his mission.  Or even obsession.  I’m gonna add a few opinions of my own, some context, and then bring it around to the New Deal.

Feb 03 2009

Time for a Little Class Warfare (music & pix)

This is a followup to my diary on Post Office Murals in the New Deal.  

Lewis Hine was a great photographer, and also an intrepid social activist.  Amongst his most famous works are pictures of child laborers in the early part of the 20th century, for the National Child Labor Committee.  The black and white slides with this music are mostly all by Hine.

Cross-posted from Daily Kos

Jan 18 2009

Bread and Roses (New Deal TRAP Murals)

I’ve been thinking that some exploration of the public works of the New Deal might be useful.  And right away, I stumbled upon a program I’d never heard of.  Under the auspices of the Treasury Department, TRAP placed murals in post offices around the country.

     

Mexican muralist (& “class warrior”) Diego Rivera was an important inspiration for the project.  This is one of his works from Mexico City.

           

He was commissioned to do a mural at Rockefeller Center, but that didn’t work out so well.  JD’s spawn objected to VI Lenin appearing in the work, and ordered it destroyed.  A smaller version was recreated in Mexico.

Cross-posted at Daily Kos