Slow Recovery

FDR could forge social and economic alliances, including government and labor, to aid the nation as a whole and individual communities. However, today this is supposedly impossible. Government and Labor are characerized as the problem, not the solution, even as Bush outspends LBJ and the Great Society. Yet, under FDR, the WPA, CCC, etc. put people to work, helped build valuable infrastructure, and galvanized communities. Corruption was not a problem in New Deal programs(in fact, there was none at all), unlike today when the Bush Administration does this sort of work via no bid contracts given to his friends at Halliburton. Interestingly, the New Deal idealists succeeded where the Bush Conservatives are failing.

What about Labor? During the Depression and after, Labor was an engine and symbol of both economic progress and social equity. Labor demanded a living wage, and it was the voice of the Working Class. It fostered the creation of a highly skilled and well paid Blue Collar work force.

Much of the New Deal, and really the whole New Deal alphabet soup, was a rolling ad hoc solution to the Depression. Institutionalized bureaucracy and Big Government can be recipes for inefficiency and mediocrity. Government that helps people help themselves, which is what FDR was doing, is better than government that creates dependent classes, be it welfare recipients or corporations seeking hand outs. LBJ's Great Society and War on Poverty reflected the best of the American society. However, as Robert Kennedy said before his assassination, Liberalism should not become permanently identified with overweening and inefficient bureaucracy, which is where elements of the Great Society were headed. Still, the govenment has a vital role as FDR, Harry Truman, Kennedy, and Johnson himself showed. It is sad that we have lost the spirit of New Deal and Fair Deal idealism. It is sad that we have lost the spirit of George Meaney, Walter Reuther and the Giants of Labor. How far we have come and how far we have sunk ...

Anyone who thinks that the employment in N.O. is all about federal contracts, simply knows nothing about what is going on there.

I have a buddy that just returned to N.O. last week. He says that every time he walks into a store -- Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, whatever -- they ask him if he wants a job. Ordinary employers are hobbled by lack of workers. Former minimum-wage jobs are now offering $10 an hour and up -- and, he says, many are offering $5,000 start-work bonuses. Everyone is getting paid better except, perhaps, those on federal contracts.

If you know someone having trouble looking for work in Houston, and does not mind the hassles of living in N.O. for a while, send them east. New Orleans is hiring.