(Information Clearing House) -- We might wonder why no Democratic Party contender for
the presidency has invoked the memory of the New Deal and
its unprecedented series of laws aimed at helping people in
need. The New Deal was tentative, cautious, bold enough to
shake the pillars of the system but not to replace them. It
created many jobs but left 9 million unemployed. It built
public housing but not nearly enough. It helped large
commercial farmers but not tenant farmers. Excluded from its
programs were the poorest of the poor, especially blacks. As
farm laborers, migrants or domestic workers, they didn't
qualify for unemployment insurance, a minimum wage, Social
Security or farm subsidies.
Still, in today's climate of endless war and uncontrolled
greed, drawing upon the heritage of the 1930s would be a
huge step forward. Perhaps the momentum of such a project
could carry the nation past the limits of FDR's reforms,
especially if there were a popular upsurge that demanded it.
A candidate who points to the New Deal as a model for
innovative legislation would be drawing on the huge
reputation Franklin Roosevelt and his policies enjoy in this
country, an admiration matched by no President since
Lincoln. Imagine the response a Democratic candidate would
get from the electorate if he or she spoke as follows:
"Our nation is in crisis, just as it was when Roosevelt took
office. At that time, people desperately needed help, they
needed jobs, decent housing, protection in old age. They
needed to know that the government was for them and not just
for the wealthy classes. This is what the American people
need today.
"I will do what the New Deal did, to make up for the failure
of the market system. It put millions of people to work
through the Works Progress Administration, at all kinds of
jobs, from building schools, hospitals, playgrounds, to
repairing streets and bridges, to writing symphonies and
painting murals and putting on plays. We can do that today
for workers displaced by closed factories, for professionals
downsized by a failed economy, for families needing two or
three incomes to survive, for writers and musicians and
other artists who struggle for security.
"The New Deal's Civilian Conservation Corps at its peak
employed 500,000 young people. They lived in camps, planted
millions of trees, reclaimed millions of acres of land,
built 97,000 miles of fire roads, protected natural
habitats, restocked fish and gave emergency help to people
threatened by floods.
"We can do that today, by bringing our soldiers home from
war and from the military bases we have in 130 countries. We
will recruit young people not to fight but to clean up our
lakes and rivers, build homes for people in need, make our
cities beautiful, be ready to help with disasters like
Katrina. The military is having a hard time recruiting young
men and women for war, and with good reason. We will have no
such problem enlisting the young to build rather than
destroy.
"We can learn from the Social Security program and the GI
Bill of Rights, which were efficient government programs,
doing for older people and for veterans what private
enterprise could not do. We can go beyond the New Deal,
extending the principle of social security to health
security with a totally free government-run health system.
We can extend the GI Bill of Rights to a Civilian Bill of
Rights, offering free higher education for all.
"We will have trillions of dollars to pay for these programs
if we do two things: if we concentrate our taxes on the
richest 1 percent of the population, not only their incomes
but their accumulated wealth, and if we downsize our
gigantic military machine, declaring ourselves a peaceful
nation.
"We will not pay attention to those who complain that this
is 'big government.' We have seen big government used for
war and to give benefits to the wealthy. We will use big
government for the people."
How refreshing it would be if a presidential candidate
reminded us of the experience of the New Deal and defied the
corporate elite as Roosevelt did, on the eve of his 1936
re-election. Referring to the determination of the wealthy
classes to defeat him, he told a huge crowd at Madison
Square Garden: "They are unanimous in their hatred for
me -- and I welcome their hatred." I believe that a candidate
who showed such boldness would win a smashing victory at the
polls.
The innovations of the New Deal were fueled by the militant
demands for change that swept the country as FDR began his
presidency: the tenants' groups; the Unemployed Councils;
the millions on strike on the West Coast, in the Midwest and
the South; the disruptive actions of desperate people
seeking food, housing, jobs -- the turmoil threatening the
foundations of American capitalism. We will need a similar
mobilization of citizens today, to unmoor from corporate
control whoever becomes President. To match the New Deal, to
go beyond it, is an idea whose time has come.
LINK: Information Clearing House