Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Obama Must Be Even Bolder Than FDR
He would feel right at home today, then, for FDR-haters are on the prowl once again, now led by right-wing think tanks and talk-show yackers who are busy rewriting history to belittle the achievements of Roosevelt’s New Deal. Their real target is Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan, which is largely modeled on the New Deal approach of government spending for roads, schools, parks, conservation, and other public works, putting millions of people to work on jobs that need doing.
The official line of these naysaying popinjays was laid down last fall by the far-right-wing Heritage Foundation, which asserted that the New Deal was a failure. Yes, parroted Fox News pundit Monica Crowley, who blathered that the failure is proven by “all kinds of studies.” Her Fox colleague Gregg Jarrett dutifully echoed her insight by saying, “I think historians pretty much agree on that.”
Uh… no, they don’t. Indeed, they pretty much agree that millions of families were saved back then by the New Deal’s public works programs, and that many millions more continue to benefit today from the work that those people produced.
The chief shortcoming of FDR’s public spending approach is that he didn’t do enough of it. After winning a smashing re-election bid in 1936, largely based on the popularity of his New Deal, Roosevelt gave in to Wall Street interests who were demanding a cut back in federal spending. The result was a relapse into recession in 1937, a return to double-digit unemployment, and a rejection of Democrats in the 1938 congressional elections.
Likewise, 2009 is no time for timid steps. The challenge for Obama – and for our country – is to stand firm against the ideological naysayers and to be even bolder than FDR.
“Republicans’ Latest Talking Point: The New Deal Failed,” The New York Times, January 12, 2009.
“Franklin Delano Obama?” www.nytimes.com, November 10, 2008.
“New Deal economics,” www.nytimes.com, November 8, 2008.
“Heritage Foundations Compares New Deal To Nazi-Soviet ‘Collectivism’,” www.thinkprogress.org, October 28, 2008.
“Political Animal,” www.washingtonmonthly.com, November 24, 2008.
25 Comments so far
Show AllY'know, it'd be SO much easier to discuss these sorts of things with you progressive types if you'd just quit bringing up that "Reality" stuff. All the time it's "reality" this and "facts" that, and how are we EVER going to get to make the world what we want it to be if we keep having to deal with things as they are?
Enough, already.
I appreciate your humour. It was meant humourously, wasn't it?
Humour? What humour? You're getting way too serious here.
Too true. Progressives are so...what's the word?...pushy?... about their reality and their facts. Whatever happened to superstition and silly fantasy worlds where you can do and be whatever!
I have lots of respect for M. Twain, but I think he was being unnecessarily anal when he said: "Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable."
Let's start the "Rovian Society for those sick and tired of reality-based living".
Hightower's recent decade-plus of broad based populist agitation leads many to know him without knowing his rise to fame as a food and farm reformer. His book, Eat Your Heart Out (1974) remains better than all of the new food policy reform books of our day on the core farm bill issues I identify here.
His Hard Tomatoes, Hard Times set the standard for challenging the scientific paradigm of the agribusiness industrial complex. Various land grant university activists later followed his lead. Didn't Cornell, however, try to buy up and destroy all the copies of the "Hard Tomatoes" style expose written there (often with pretend authors covering for progressive Cornell professors up for tenure)?
Surely Hightower still understands that the Steagal Amendment of 1941 included a huge farm based economic stimulus through parity pricing. After all, Hightower led the charge for price floors with supply management and price ceilings with reserves during the 1980s. For example, immediately after the 1985 National Farm Crisis Action Rally in Ames Iowa (Hilton), he led work on his grassroots "Farm Policy Reform Act" next door at C.Y. Stevens. Certainly Harkin staffer (Agribusiness Accountability Project) Al Krebs was relentless in pursuit of these much needed policies. Look for Krebs new book on farm policy to come out from IATP.
We need action from respected leaders who know farm policy (ie. McGovern, Hightower) if we are to win on this still mostly misunderstood issue. We need to again make a profit on farm exports and make the Cargills, ADMs, Tysons, Kellogg's, Smithfields and CAFOs (foreign and domestic) to pay fair trade, living wage prices. We need price floors and supply management instead of taxpayers paying while these special interests get multibillion dollar below cost gains.
The Africa Group at WTO has called for international supply management, as have many fair farm trade groups. The UK also called for international supply management in years past, but the US rejected it in favor of losing money on exports (as we die for a quarter century, USDA-ERS). We need the wealth of fair trade policies. So do LDCs (which are 73% rural, 2005 UN).
Hightowers grassroots developed Farm Policy Reform Act became the Harkin-Gephardt farm bill. We also need the leadership of Harkin and Gephardt. Harkin, in particular will lead Vilsack and Obama. But Harkin abandoned this bill and switched over to a "greened" Republican "Freedom to Farm approach. Hey, mainstream media never did understand that Harkin was getting rid of all farm commodity subsidies by replacing them with fair trade, living wage price floors, etc. Republicans dominated. Harkin-Gephardt wasn't "winnable." That's all changed now. The Democrats no longer need to push a Republican pro dumping farm bill. We've had enough cheap prices (fructose, transfats, ethanol, CAFOs, dumping). We need the old Harkin, not the recent "Harkin Compromise."
We need some leadership out here somewhere folks! I guess it has to come from the grassroots. Let's get to work. Spread the word. The current farm bill commodity title is so bad that it could easily fail within a year or two and we'll have another chance before you know it. I see bankers storming Washington for a new farm bill soon, as they did four times when Freedom to Farm failed (1997-2001) and as they did in passing the Steagal Amendment of 1941 through the banking committees.
Sioux Rose
BRAD: Thank you for the "education" on this topic, as I knew little about it. Voices like yours making coming to commondreams a rewarding experience.
Sioux Rose, I agree. I always appreciate your comments. And thank you, Brad for pointing out a story many of us know too little about. For my own two cents, I think that we citizens need to educate ourselves by spending some of our time each week doing our own research and not taking anything at face value. I also think that we need to spend our money wisely. Know where our dollars are going. Me? My family loves that processed soy stuff in the green boxes in non-meat frozen foods (don't want to name names - they know who they are), but I won't buy those products anymore. Once I found out that almost all (probably all) soy products that are not specifically labelled organic are genetically modified, well, I'm not eating GMOs or serving them (and I know the jury's still out on the health benefits of soy). I know that it can be time consuming, but it feels great knowing that I'm supporting a local farmer by buying their eggs, and not a large unfeeling conglomorate. My hope is that the big businesses will realize that they are losing customers because they are treating the plant and tree kingdom, the land, water and air as commodities. I urge all of us to seek out those companies who are worthy of earning our dollars. It's well worth the time investment. There are many companies who are very respectful of the earth we all share. Usually, they are our friends and neighbors.
Sioux Rose
Hi Cynthia, I think it is RTDRURY who always speaks about investing locally. I am considering purchasing a small property and having a man friend build a green house so we can grow produce year round. This same friend is now partner to a small kayak rental and pontoon boat tourist (very low-key) business starting up on an obscure springs and small river run that leads to the Suwannee River. I was asked today to invest in a boat for it. For a small investment, I can back something I believe in, and probably see the sum recovered in less than a year. It's so scary these days to know whether to squirrel away what money we have, put it into a certificate of deposit, buy a little land? None of the experts know what to do, because the rules of the financial paradigm are now clearly inverted. This is an Alice in Wonderland financial not-so-brave new world order. I probably will support my friend in this business because its intention is to teach people more about Florida's ecosystems, and I like the knowledge I can get out on the water whenever I please. There's no less expensive therapy I can think of!
Please invest in your friend's business. One) it is a tangible asset Two) money invested directly in education ( not usurious student loans) is rarely wasted and plants the seed to future returns Three) quiet unmotorized hydrotherapy, as you mentioned for yourself and others.
On this website there seems to be a belief that the New Deal was a perfect program that turned everything peachy. The reality is some of it was good, some was terrible. The public works projects, the TVA, WPA, and other writer and art programs really did help put people to work creating enduring infrastucture and art. The NRA which started fixing prices took all small and mid sized businesses out and allowed the large corporations to consolidate. The banking act and FDR's confiscation of public gold was borderline criminal.
So lets not just agree with the opposite because a right winger said it. It is actually the opposing side that will resort to the truth to get more votes in the next election. That's what drew me to common dreams and other progressive literature because the opposition to the leadership usually do the best job checking them.
Obama needs to reform the monetary system, which means abolishing the fed and promoting local trade and even local currencies, before we can settle the economy. His "stimulus" is going to not make much difference because the problem is huge amounts of debt. If we assume there is no corruption and all of it goes towards putting blue collar people to work for a few years, they will be no better off if they dont use their earnings to pay down debt. And our government can't be in this much debt or we will wake up to a worthless currency soon. That will turn us into a third world country immediately and I think that will be what puts us in a state of martial law... and I'm willing to bet Obama's martial law would be just as vicious as Bush's.
Also one thing I hate is when free thinkers are attacked for not going along with the party line. The same thing happened to many moderate republicans during the Bush years. Given Obama's Messiah like status, I have a funny feeling we're going to see it from the left.
Given the state of our government's foreign debt, the fact that we produce nothing, and that stimulating unbridled consumption without making anything to is what the "experts" like Krugman think will solve our problems. It is just making it worse because unsustainable debt is the problem.
Giving a heroin junkie more heroin because they are getting dope sick will not cure the problem. They need to detox and go through a withdraw period. But the more heroin the junkie takes, the worse the detox will be. All we're doing is giving the junkie more smack. The only thing is we protected the dealers by bailing out the banks.
This stimulus plan will not permanently solve any problems. Real tough love would have been letting all the finance companies go broke and let people buy down as much debt as possible at a discount. If we all got our home loans and other liabilities just dropped we'd all be in much better shape.
Sioux Rose
CPOTTS: I agree with your above posting, and I think most in this forum do, as well. Do you feel that investing in infrastructure, putting people to work refitting buildings with solar panels, substantiating the old bridges, perhaps laying train track would help the economy while ultimately adding value to domestic resources? In other words, would you see benefit to a new version of a "back to works" program?
"This stimulus plan will not permanently solve any problems." IT'S NOT MEANT TO!!!
Your posts have that smell of "tough love" realism, yet what you say it purely ridiculous. Some heroine addicts at a certain point definitely need heroine to stay alive. THEN, you can work with them to nurture them back to health with well-known methods--methadone treatment, etc. What they don't need is some tight-ass, moralistic tough-love cure that will simply kill them cold turkey.
The same with the economy. When an economy heads south as ours is doing, there is nothing that will self-correct and it will simply keep getting worse, unless it is rescued. That means more and more people losing their jobs, which necessarily forces more and more people to lose their jobs in turn as the goods they produce are no longer demanded. Tough love is ridiculous, counter-productive, cruel, and deeply stupid at that point.
Once you stimulate the economy and people get back to work, Now is the time to do lots of other things every progressive understands is needed: financial reform, scale back the military big-time, move GREEN in a big way, etc., etc.
But recessions and depressions hurt the people at the bottom the most and there's no getting around that. That moron Hoover and ass....s of his ilk always want to go the "tough love" route which makes things worse and hurts the most vulnerable the most.
Keynes was so far right, Attila the Hun was way to his left. Yet he was intelligent enough to know that the way to rescue the ecomony was for gov't to prime the pump. There is simply no alternative. Consumers cut their spending in a recession for the most basic of common sense reasons. And private investors stop investing in order not to lose their money. Duh!!
So the gov't must act to rescue the situation or face the total collapse of the economy, as was very possible in the 30s. With the incredible horrors of suffering that would naturally follow.
America needs to invest huge fortunes in infrastructure, green technology, etc. NOW is the time to start. And yes, it will cost $$$...!! There is no choice. Deficit budgeting is obviously unsustainable, and our dire fiscal and monetary situation must be addressed. But not now.
Keep the patient alive first, and then start rehab.
THINK before you type.
I did think before I typed. A year or two of economic collapse might just be what we need to institute fair economic policies. Even if its hurts, its necessary. You can't solve problems caused by debt by going deeper into debt. So I did think, I read all the progressive writers in the MSM and on here and many of them were for bailing the fat cats out... including Paul Krugman... and I thought now they are all full of shit. So screw Krugman, I'm buying food, water purification system, guns, and survival equipment. I recommend you all do the same.
A year or two? What makes you so confident that your "tough love" will only last a year or two? What if it spirals into a depression that lasts maybe a decade?
Talk to the Japanese about a "year or two". Ask them about their "lost decade". Talk to the Brits about the so called "lost generation" of youth.
It is easy of course to say that "even if its hurts, its necessary". Tell that to a family that has lost jobs, can't pay the mortgage and are going to lose their home.
What happens if people are sick of being jobless and homeless? Might they start taking to the streets? Demonstrations that might begin peacefully, but could escalate into violent street battles once they see that their government continues to preach "tough love" and "necessary hurt".
A reality check on FDR and the New Deal is that they helped to generate morale during extremely hard times, but the underlying causes of the Great Depression were not fully addressed until World War II, when we started a massive industrialization / jobs effort to fight for national survival. The ugly truth is that no one during that time really understood depressions and how to recover from one. Republicans were in no better position than Democrats to bring the country out of the Depression. One only needs a brief look at what Herbert Hoover did to make the situation worse as a reminder. Remember the "Hoovervilles" (homeless encampments).
If we truly want to learn from experience, focus on re industrializing America, PRODUCTION, and generating jobs.
Our economy right now is way too dependent on making money from money investments instead of real PRODUCTION. In our current economic system, we can invest money through stock brokers or specific plans, but not understand where our money is going or what is happening. The only picture provided is sanitized for non stock brokers. The result is basically everyone was invested in toxic loans with little understanding of the lack of overall equity to debt was at an emergency level or the risks involved in basically unethical loan sharking. REGULATION must be established at a much more aggressive level.
We need more than a reboot of the same economic system, we need to change the economic system and its over dependence of money investment.
What is needed isn't a New Deal, it may be more along the lines of the Marshall Plan under which Japan recovered after WWII to become a world economic power. Think about those Toyota and Honda factories, production and jobs.
We need to impose tariffs on all goods from outsourced American factories and jobs. This will generate income to offset the massive bail outs. We can also crack down on offshore banking and call it for what it is, TAX EVASION. Between moving factories, jobs and bank accounts offshore, this has become a TRICKLE OUT economy.
Very important point, MountainMike, regarding economic production. Almost universally, when we hear the economy rated, it's based on things like economic growth, the stock market's performance, consumer spending, or even the unemployment rate. These are parroted as "fundamentals." Well, they're not! They're secondary effects of one fundamental: PRODUCTIVITY! It may shocking to learn that our economic health is built on pillars of actual economic production, also called adding value. This fact eludes the talking heads on television, which is why for the last eight years we have heard about the well-performing economy, which was actually bad all along.
The economy was growing, sure, unemployment was low, sure, but much (most?) of that was financed by DEBT, and not by actual productivity. Today, and perhaps for the rest of our lives, we will pay for that misunderstanding (unless we were lucky enough to be a financial executive during those years). Serious regulation of the financial markets is in order. Incentives of those who handle money must be properly aligned with those who entrust them with it.
FDR had to deal with blind greed and misfeasance.
Obama is dealing with blind greed and malfeasance.
What should we expect after eight years of that coprophagous smirk.
Now is the time for American citizens to join hands and dance around
the Truth and Reconciliation funeral pyre for these homocidal looting liars.
burt shachter
I a grateful to FDR for my social security, FDIC and his legacy inherited hopefully by Barack Obama.
Welcome back Jim. Long time no hear.
About the stimulus bill, Obama needs to include 3 things:
1. Reigning in reckless war spending.
2. Reigning in bailouts to Wall $treet.
3. Rolling back tax breaks and loopholes for those making above 200k.
Without those 3, it just ain't a real stimulus bill but more like a Raygunesque clone rather than an FDR model.
I would support a stimulus package to the extent that it really helps people. One key point I see is that these programs have to be public works programs where people are paid decent wages. Giving money to private industry would be unacceptable, in my view. The stimulus is looked at all wrong anyway, as a way of restoring economic growth. It may, or may not help the economy, in terms of GDP growth. It is good to the extent that it helps the working class and the poor. If it did this, it would do more than most things over the past 30 years, seeing as how working class wages have not kept up with the rest of the economy, and has in fact declined. Economic growth must no longer go to the top.
Written to Change.Gov – Obama Public Input Website
Let's not rush headlong with a "stimulus" package that would be similar to a shot of adrenaline to a dying organism.
Let's give a redevelopment program much more thought and care and transition away from the simplistic Keynesian notions that assume that "the growth imperative" is true, and simply try to pump prime a moribund automobile (culture).
I have specific plans. We need to set the time frame for ecological economic re-development over the span of the next 20 to 50 years. Money spent now, should also be drawn from the funds from the financial bailout fund to begin the planning process and, as soon as possible, get the actual physical work started that will lead to an equitable, sustainable culture rather than another hit of heroin to a fossil fuel and other energy squandering supply side massive centennial and generational blunder, respectively.
We don't need a New New Deal, We need a Better Deal, a Socialist transition, not a Capitalist Co-optation like the New Deal. We need a Plan of Neighborhood/Inter-community/Regional/Worldwide Ecological Economic Planning and Redevelopment based on the principles of peace, equity, humanity, sustainability, and quality of life.
You can get more info. on my work at the "Peoples Equity Union" web log, and feel free to contact me directly at (541) 343-3808.
mlarosamorin@earthlink.net
Mike Morin
www.peoplesequityunion.blogspot.com
PIPEDREAMS Says: "If it seems to good to be true, odds are it's not true!"
Take the $$ and create a Nat'l health system with it for one thing. Don't let the Pols fritter the money away by largely giving it to the same BIG CORPS. that are already fat from yrs. of feasting at the public trough already. I'm afraid that much of this money will be diverted into "newly" renamed Defense boondoggles and phony pork barrel scams like so called beach replenishment projects the Army Corp. loves. I like to use the Army Corp projects for this reason , over 500 of them already exist and they were starting to lose funding ( this was a good thing). These projects largely pour scarce public resources onto beaches in front of mostly wealthy folks vacation mansions and a few thousands businesses ( also largely owned by wealthy individuals). Beach replenishment as presently constituted is nothing more then a classic welfare program for the rich masked as a public works and jobs program. The sand promptly in most cases just washes away and the same few Corps. profiting from this saddle right back up to the trough for another expensive refill. The projects are not scientific or even effective but they are extremely popular among pols who can use them for a photo op. in front of a newly filled and temporarily wide beach. Pols love these types of projects because they use them to get reelected and they pass them off as both storm protection ( which most decidedly aren't) and as providing recreational space. In fact all they are doing is moving sand around at $12 a cubic yard. These projects enrich a few very wealthy families and their very well connected ( to the Army Corp.) dredging and coastal engineering companies. In short this is money that doesn't create jobs but it does create huge profits. It's trickle down at it's worst. I personally am going to Congress in spring to the committees that approve of the billions to fund these fiascoes and I'm going to ask them NOT to use the OBAMA stimulus to fund these rip offs. I use these projects as the poster children of how the Stimulus could end up simply washing away into an already corrupt Fed. private contracts set up. Remember folks the BV$H crime syndicate made damn sure only loyal GOP Corps. and individuals got to dine on Fed. pork or even get to bid in most cases. I believe every dollars being handed out has to be watched or like what just happened with TARP the money will just vanish into the hands of the same vandals that brought us this widening disaster.
Mr. Obama has repeatedly asked for "better ideas". Here is one. Buy some 5 million automobiles from US car makers over the next two years and devise strategies to get these to deserving families or individuals for free or for a small fee. That will preserve jobs in the auto industry and perhaps create new ones.
Dear Mr. Hightower:
Please do your best to free the people of Texas from the NeoCon Republicans like Sen. Cornyn and the likes of Gov. Rick Perry, not to mention the Blue dog Demos. I have some suggestions on how to do this.
1) Start to include the voices of the Mexican-American population in your periodicals and discussions.
2) Support the progressives in that Majority/Minority community.
3) Support Chicano Studies so that the young Mexican-Americans will learn about their proud heritage, instead of the biographical details of the Spurs Team Members.
4) Watch out for those know-nothings who want to control what is contained in school books so that the oppressed population can remain in ignorance.
Liberate Texas, Ya'll, then get back to us on the national scene.