Two Approaches to Misery

During the Great Depression, FDR and his administration responded to misery in certain & strong ways, i.e., the New Deal.

In our current 5-year long recession/stagnation--as 26 million people desire full-time work but can't find it (http://njfac.org/)--our political "leaders" are also responding to misery in a certain way.

Let's compare:

Problem or Item	During the New Deal	Today
Joblessness	Hire unemployed workers in programs like the WPA & CCC	Ignore the jobless; then furlough & lay-off government workers and government contractors
Senior Citizen Poverty	Create Social Security	Constantly threaten to reduce or get rid of Social Security
Lay offs	Facilitate the creation/expansion of unemployment insurance	Cut back unemployment insurance and drug test the unemployed
Infrastructure	Engage in the largest work and construction program in human history	Ignore deteriorating infrastructure, even after the American Society of Civil Engineers gives us a D+ in their recent infrastructure report card
Post Offices	Build 1,100 of them; part of the massive nationwide effort to increase work & construction	Sell the historic post office buildings, and the publicly-funded art inside the buildings, to private developers and individuals (i.e., sell our heritage)
Public Parks	Create and improve them	Cut their budgets, despite their huge positive economic effect for America
Unemployed Veterans	Give World War I veterans opportunities to work in the CCC, a program otherwise geared towards young adults	Senate Republicans block a bill to create a new CCC-type program for unemployed vets
The Stock Market and Financial System	Create the SEC and regulate against various types of fraud	Dilly-dally for 5-years, never really reforming anything, despite wide-spread securities fraud, insider trading, and money laundering