Bring Back the Works Progress Administration

[The Jacobin]

The Port of South Louisiana is the largest port in the United States and the fifth largest in the world. We need it back as soon as possible. The people that live there need a sense of purpose as well as stable employment, food, shelter, clothing, and transportation.

The WPA would provide that. All the construction contracts would be directly handled by the WPA which would hire all the available labor in the area to reconstruct the infrastructure in the area. The WPA build thousands of miles of roads and bridges all over the country during the Great Depression providing an upgrade to existing infrastructure and employment for hundreds of thousands of people.

The rebuilding of levies, roads, bridges, and buildings in New Orleans should not be an excuse to enrich Bechtel, but to rebuild the lives of the residents of New Orleans while rebuilding their city.

[PSPS]

1. Great idea, but the treasury is empty.

Bush's base, the "haves and have mores," wouldn't stand for actually having to contribute to the society that enriched them.

[Hidden Stillness]

2. All the Solutions Have Been There All Along--the New Deal

Amazing, isn't it, how easily solved so many of these huge and intractable problems might have been, solving many things at once, from unemployment to crumbling infrastructure--and all you would have to do is revive the entire New Deal set of programs. It isn't even tricky; it was all done before, once.

[area51]

3. WPA

I've been saying that we need this throughout the U.S., b/c we have a Depression economy.