Bring Back the Civilian Conservation Corps: Frank Ackerman

[The Straight Story]

Bring Back the Civilian Conservation Corps: Frank Ackerman

With the nation desperate for new jobs, the Obama Administration would be wise to reestablish the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), says Frank Ackerman, senior economist and director of the Climate Economics Group of the Stockholm Environment Institute U.S. Center at Tufts University.

“Nothing contributed as much to the Democrats’ midterm electoral losses as the high rate of unemployment; the party in power routinely gets clobbered when lots of people are out of work on Election Day,” notes Ackerman.

The CCC employed young men when long-term unemployment was a stubborn problem, like now, and it greatly improved the nation’s infrastructure along the way. “The CCC planted 4 billion trees. It built 63,000 buildings, 125,000 miles of roads, 47,000 bridges, and 28,000 miles of park trails. It installed 89,000 miles of telephone lines and 5,000 miles of water lines,” Ackerman writes.

Funding the CCC did mean adding to the federal deficit, he admits, “but not by much.” He claims it cost $3 billion to run the program over nine years, “equivalent to an average of less than $6 billion a year in today’s dollars.” This is a drop in the bucket compared to either the Wall Street bailout or President Obama’s stimulus program.

http://www.allgov.com/Opinion_from_the_Left/ViewNews/Bring_Back_the_Civilian_Conservation_Corps__Frank_Ackerman_101125

[madmax]

1. Been saying the same thing for a few years now.

We need jobs, the country's infrastructure is shot to hell. It's a win-win. Why aren't the Dem's bringing this up out LOUD? :shrug:

[madrchsod]

2. my dad`s ccc boss was ronald reagen`s dad.

my dad was on a tree planting crew. others built roads ,bridges,and buildings in our local state parks. there are still post offices near here that have the original murals painted by out of work artists.

[burnsei sensei]

3. Yes.

[puebloknot]

4. Absolutely agree (old enough to know what the CCC was)! But ...

... it will have to be bipartisan, you know. We'll have to reach across the aisle for support for such a plan!

I feel like I'm living in a slow-motion movie!

[panader0]

5. k/r

[annabanana]

6. kickers. this would be HUGELY stimulative.

The money earned would be spent out into the economy immediately.

[Brother Buzz]

7. CCC should have been spooled up years ago

We are more than ready for WPA, too, like yesterday.

I've seen and used the results from both projects. Money well spent.

[KG]

8. the nation infrastructure is a shambles, but the stimulus went to useless high speed trains, etc

sewers just weren't sexy enough.

[TheKentuckian]

10. Too small and too many tax cuts.The total infrastructure investment wasn't near enough to tackle

a damn thing.

That little token train money, for a token train investment isn't hardly a drop in the bucket.

I share your concerns though. The sewers are near complete collapse and what that means for our general health and especially for crossing the dilapidated water mains and the groundwater is quite scary and will make us pretty much third world in a generation or less.

But...

Pretending to invest in "high speed" rail didn't have any real effect on that problem. I might be off but the scale is similar, the stimulus put up like 8.4 billion to upgrade the power grid which was half the cost in one of these fascist corporate/government partnership deal leaving the American public to be fleeced by our service providers in the name of their investment in the upgrade instead of picking up the 16.8 billion and relieving the people some and getting an upper hand on these robberbarons.

I might well have not what I wanted in a stimulus but by the time I got done reporting on national television the state of the infrastructure in every state and calling out roadblocks by name, we'd be going in the right direction and meaningfully attack some of these critical problems while keeping American families on their feet. Along with putting the spotlight on corrupt TeaPubliKlan Governors might have helped keep and take some state houses.

Doing the right thing is more than its own reward, it lays a better foundation to move forward as well.

[MadMaddie]

9. I have been saying this too!

It is more than clear that the Corporations will not hire and they will continue to export American jobs.