POSTED A COUPLE OF MONTHS AGO.......Happy Thanksgiving!
WPA, WHERE ARE YOU, NOW THAT WE NEED YOU.
Isn’t it time to try “Trickle up” instead of “Trickle down”
Our economy is approaching flatline.
The country is in bad physical shape.
I mean bricks and mortar bad shape. Coming apart, old buildings
and roads crumbling.
Driving over bridges at your own risk,
Potholes so deep they could swallow a small car..
What would happen if we did what Franklin Roosevelt did to fight
the last depression? He put men to work repairing the infrastructure
of the country. The men got pay checks every week.. They and their families
began buying goods again. Modest buys, mostly food and clothing.
Their returning consumerism began to shore up retail sales, and, from
there, the manufactuers of goods to be sold in those stores here and abroad.
In time some of these businesses started by the government’s Works
Progress Authority expanded and chains and franchises were born.
The stock market came out of its swoon. The richer got richer, but
hell, they always do. At least the men in the breadlines were working
and propping up the economy that keeps the rich rich. And the middle
and lower classes from reaching for their pitchforks.
The country began to look less like a slum. Roads were driveable. Cars weren’t
forever lost in pot holes and sinkholes.. Bridges were repaired or
replaced. Rail tracks no longer threatened trains.
It was called the WPA and it saved the country. Why doesn’t someone
ever talk about it? Too socialistic? What is the bailout by the government of
failing and destroyed capitalist temples but socialism?
And who labeled socialism a dirty word? I’d say, the same people who think Liberals
are the spawn of the devil.
Addendum:Rosa Brooks agrees on such Rooseveltian ideas in today's
Los Angeles Times Editorial page
11:15:01 AM 
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