ARE WE TODAY FAILING THE EFFORTS OF OUR PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS?

Years ago, my father worked on a number of the giant WPA and CWA projects. He would be very disappointed if he were alive today.

...The collapsed I-35 Minnesota bridge in 2007

At some point after the 1930´s Great Depression and World War II, the United States became not only the world´s leading nation in wealth and power, but our nation´s infrastructure was also the total envy of the free world.

However, just as it is today, the Republican party back then was complaining that America could not afford the government-established administrations of FDR´s "New Deal". But it was just this kind of government "last-ditch" effort that made a failed economy into the most robust economy ever seen on the face of the earth.

It became a real cliché for the critics to call FDR´s "New Deal" government organizations, the "Alphabet Soup" of operations that were eventually highly successful in getting America back to work.

Here is a basic list of the major federal "Alphabet" organizations that reduced the nation´s unemployment numbers to low, single digits. And these organizations eventually created the largest and greatest middle class that this small planet had ever seen.

NEW DEAL ALPHABET-SOUP ADMINISTRATIONS:

>>> CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps.)

>>> CWA (Civil Works Administration)

>>> NRA (National Recovery Administration)

>>> WPA (Work Projects Administration)

>>> SEC (Security & Exchange Commission)

>>> TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority)

>>> FHA (Federal Housing Administration)

>>> USHA (United States Housing Authority)

>>> PWA (Public Work Administration)

>>> NYA (National Youth Administration)

>>> NLRB (National Labor Relations Board)

>>> ERAA (Emergency Relief Appropriations Act)

These organizations also helped to create and build what became the great American national infrastructure of: federal buildings, parks, roads, hospitals, schools, dams, levees, canals, power plants, tunnels, railroad´s, airports, libraries, public housing, public golf courses and tennis courts and auto and rail bridges.

The GOP critics of the day ridiculed all of the agencies, especially the WPA. The Republicans were always saying that the initials for the WPA meant: "We Poke Along", or "We Piddle Around", or "We Putter Along", even calling them the, "Working Piss Ants", or the "Whistle, Piss and Argue gang". These were the critic´s sarcastic references to all the critical WPA projects. They also falsely accused the projects of sometimes slowing down deliberately, as an incentive to keep going rather than finishing the project.

Regardless of the criticisms, here are just some of the largest projects, some of which would never have been built without the New Deal´s federal "Alphabet" organizations as listed above:

>>> 20,000 miles of city water mains across the nation for fresh water and fire hydrants.

>>> the renovating of 2,384 town Fire Houses and the building of 325 new fire houses.

>>> The large Griffith Park Observatory in Los Angles

>>> $1 Billion spent on building multiple, public-owned utility companies across the nation

>>> $1 Billion spent on developing and implementing public school lunch programs

>>> the TVA brought electricity to thousands of remote square miles in the Tennessee Valley.

>>> the WPA among others were responsible for building the Golden Gate Bridge, the Lincoln Tunnel and Grand Coulee Dam

>>> CWA's workers laid 12 million feet of sewer pipe and they built or improved 255,000 miles of roads.

>>> CWA built 40,000 schools, 3,700 playgrounds, and nearly 1,000 airports

>>> CWA also built 250,000 outhouses, which were still badly needed at the time in rural America.

>>> The WPA, CWA and PWA were also responsible for dams and lockes along the Mississippi, Columbia, Missouri and Colorado rivers.

So, after all this, why do I ask the question, "Are we today failing the past efforts of our parents and grandparents?"

Due to FDR´s thick skin regarding those critics of his programs, and due to the hard work of our parents and grandparents, we were left one of the greatest infrastructure legacies of anything that could ever have been passed on to its inheritors.

But how are we inheritors treating that legacy today?

Well, as an example, due to a lack of maintenance, thousands of our nation´s bridges, built by our parents and grandparents decades ago, are in the position today to replicate the 2007 collapse of the Interstate 35 bridge in Minnesota. That bridge was listed as being in serious trouble, but it was still allowed to carry 140,000 cars every day until the day it collapsed. This situation could easily be replicated across the country with other federal buildings, hydroelectric dams, coal burning and nuclear power plants, schools, hospitals, libraries, airports, rail stations, levees, canals, tunnels and roads and highways. At any time, any of these old 1930 to 1960 structures, roads, bridges or past projects could go the way of Minnesota´s I-35 bridge.

And as it was in the 1930´s, the conservatives are once again saying, "America cannot afford to spend tax-payers revenue on its critical infrastructure situation".

I say, as it was back then, in today´s down economy, we can´t afford NOT to invest in American workers and their ability to restore, or build new, all that we have inherited over the past decades.

The far-right, the conservatives and the Republicans in general, are apparently willing and totally prepared to just sit back and let the legacy of our ancestors dissolve or crumble away.

My question is, what are those of us on the other side of the issue prepared to do in saving the valuable investments that were made by those that brought all of us into this world?

I think it´s time to replace all of those individuals that are willing to let our legacy slip away and to replace them with those that want to renew what we have inherited.

I would say that the final solution is now totally up to us between now and the 2012 elections.

Copyright G.Ater 2011

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