THE RE-NEW DEAL: Four simple programs to save the economy now!

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

I would add an oil/gas conservation program to part four.

One would think that would go without saying.

am on board (toss in cellulose alcohol/oil conversion and the hydrogen production idea using solar conversion of CO2 - of course :-) )

We need to completely re-think our energy policy, and put it in the hands of scientists instead of politicians.

for this new thinking could be Cradle to Cradle by McDonough and Braungart. I also liked the idea of holding elections over two days (the Saturday and Sunday before Veteran's Day in Nov) and having all Paper Ballots and having High School kids count on Vets Day as part of SS/Civics class that would be mandatory.

Oh and get rid of the Electoral College system too...

ok so i have high hopes.

K&R

since you mention it, this is something I've been thinking about recently, and I've concluded that it's probably an inevitability in the next administration, no matter who the president is . . .

the bottom line is that jobs are being lost in this country at and unprecedented rate . . . at some point, the people are going to demand that the president and Congress DO something, and that something is going to have to be a massive public works employment project similar to the New Deal . . . there simply will be no other way to avoid outright revolution . . .

it gets interesting when you factor in the Iraq war and the "defense" budget . . . most of the war dollars and a good portion of other "defense" dollars are going to have to be re-directed to saving the American economy by employing the unemployed . . . whether they want to or not, the president and Congress will have to abandon much of the "defense" infrastructure in favor of something that actually produces some kind of economic benefit for the nation . . .

if they don't, there won't be anything left to defend . . .

there are no tax cuts!

Come to think of it, why don't we just scrap this plan of yours and just give more tax cuts to everyone as Bush is proposing?

Not only is it nice because we don't have to put much thought into it (reading all that text in your socialist post gave me a headache), but who isn't excited to get a check for $100 in the mail? Come on, don't ruin it for the rest of us.

(Yes, your sarcasm meter just exploded. :) K & R because this is the type of discussion we need to be having for a REAL economic stimulus plan).


www.theyoungturks.com

no one running seems to WANT the answers to the problems. Like I said before, we lack the courage this nation needs.

They created a new paradigm, one in which taxes are always evil. The 80's laid a foundation for a tax-averse country that has since largely bought into any politician who wants to cut taxes, deficits and debt be damned.