A lot has been said, by people on all sides, about how to rescue this nation’s failing economy. Sadly, not enough people doing that talking remember their history. To solve our current problems, let’s look back to what the answers were the last time our economy was on such uneven footing.
To any and all Presidential candidates, feel free to steal this from me. After all, I’m stealing it from the greatest President of the twentieth century.
“THE RE-NEW DEAL”
PART ONE: THE CIVILIAN INFRASTRUCTURE CORPS.
Franklin Roosevelt put thousands of men who were out of work into a series of public works projects, the benefits of which are still being felt today. Dwight Eisenhower, likewise, put thousands of unemployed veterans (and civilians) to work building the Interstate Highway System. Sadly, a lot of what these two Presidents did is in bad shape today, and needs immediate attention.
The Civilian Infrastructure Corps will hire unemployed men and women, not to mention providing housing and food, as they swarm throughout this nation rebuilding our infrastructure. Rebuilding bridges, re-paving roads, replacing worn out or overloaded portions of our electrical and communications grid, and building schools. This would not only provide much needed employment for people currently out of work, putting money into their pockets, but our nation would reap the rewards of better roads and more reliable electricity and communications for years to come. Special divisions can be created in the Gulf Coast area, specifically hiring formerly displaced persons to rebuild that destruction as well.
PART TWO: THE SILICON VALLEY AUTHORITY
Arguably, Roosevelt’s greatest legacy was the Tennessee Valley Authority, which brought electricity to some of the poorest areas of the deep south for the first time, providing an economic leg-up to one of the worst-depressed areas of the nation. Now it’s time for a new version of the TVA, but this time it won’t be electricity it will be bringing with it, it will be broadband.
The Silicon Valley Authority will pay to run state of the art cable and fiber-optic lines to the least-covered areas of the nation, making affordable high-speed communications available to millions of Americans for the first time. The SVA will also be tasked with overseeing the network and leasing its lines to carriers with restrictions and incentives to keep prices low, so that everyone can benefit from the transition from a manufacturing to an information economy. It will also provide grants to help cities like Philadelphia, which are seeking to build city-wide free Wireless grids.
PART THREE: MEDICAL SECURITY
What more need be said about this? One of the greatest causes of catastrophic poverty in the 1930's was the lack of retirement planning among the elderly. Today, it’s the ever-increasing cost of health care, health insurance, and the sudden poverty that one sudden illness can bring to a family.
In the 1930's, the answer was Social Security, a guaranteed, government-run retirement plan. Today, it’s Medical Security, which would be best described as “Medicare For Everybody.” A single payer, government run, health insurance program empowered to negotiate for the best prices for medicine and for care. At the same time, the government should provide grants to help repair existing non-profit medical centers and build others.
PART FOUR: THE BROOKLYN PROJECT
During World War II, the government brought some of the greatest theoretical and practical minds together for a single objective: the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. Today we need to employ the same exact approach to solve the biggest threat to our national security in the 21st century: foreign oil dependence.
The Brooklyn Project would once again bring our best scientific minds together, housed in an abandoned military base (and lord knows we have enough of those) with a single task: end this nation’s dependence upon petroleum. Fund their experiments into new battery technologies, improved solar, wind, and geothermal technologies, and other alternative energy sources. At the same time, acquire large tracts of unoccupied land in the deserts of the American southwest and build the world’s largest solar farm in much the same way the original TVA (see part two) harnessed hydroelectric power in the 1930's.
There you have it: four simple programs to help turn around this abysmal Bush economy, put people back to work, and leave America a better, more secure, nation. They may be simple, but they do require one basic thing: courage, something sorely lacking in today’s leaders. If anyone out there has the courage, take this and try to make it a reality. You have nothing to lose but your nation’s disdain.
©2008 P. Sungenis, All Rights Reserved