The Reverse New Deal: Blaming teachers instead of Wall Street fraud; laying off teachers to appease greed

Above: New Deal policymakers facilitated the employment of jobless teachers--by the tens of thousands--in programs like the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, the Civilian Conservation Corps, and the Works Progress Administration. These teachers taught many types of classes, for example: music, arts & crafts, social studies, math, airplane mechanics, trades, workplace safety, and more. They also helped the blind, the disabled, adults who couldn't read or write, and they even gave citizenship classes to immigrants. The photo above shows a WPA art class for visually impaired children in Salem, Oregon, 1941. Photo courtesy of the FDR Presidential Library and Museum.

Wall Street and super-wealthy Americans have been getting away with a lot of civil & criminal wrongdoing these past many years - insider trading, mortgage & securities fraud, money laundering for drug cartels, illegal tax evasion, cooking the books, conspiring to manipulate the world's currency & interest rates, illegally foreclosing on the homes of American soldiers in combat zones, and so on.

 

But here's the funny thing ("funny" as in "sick"): Instead of holding Wall Street accountable, many Americans have pointed their fingers at the unemployed, the homeless, and public school teachers, and said, "You are causing our economic problems!" Millions of Americans have been duped by right-wing politicians, think tanks, billionaires, radio show hosts, and media outlets, into believing that our economic problems stem not from the monthly and multi-billion dollar frauds emanating from Wall Street, but from public school teachers making $53,000 per year and getting their summers off (sometimes). And because of this, we get absurd situations where, on the one hand, the richest Americans keep adding hundreds of billions of dollars to their already-bloated wealth while, on the other hand, the richest Americans are calling for teachers to be laid off to solve our various economic & budget problems (see, e.g., "Hedge Fund Economists Want Puerto Rico to Lay Off Teachers to Fix Debt Crisis," Time, July 28, 2015).

 

In Kansas, a toxic mixture of corporate greed, tax breaks for the wealthy, and right-wing politics have made the state a living hell for teachers; so much so that one school superintendent said, "I find it increasingly difficult to convince young people that education is a profession worth considering, and I have some veterans who think about leaving. In the next three years I think we’ll have maybe the worst teacher shortage in the country -- I think most of that is self-inflicted." Another superintendent said, "Teachers are working many more hours, much harder. They’re doing it on their own and don’t have the support we should be giving them. [They face] constant bashing from the governor and legislature, [who] in my opinion are trying to privatize education and just destroy it" ("Kansas Underfunded Education And Cut Tenure. Now It Can't Find Enough Teachers To Fill Classrooms," Huffington Post, July 31, 2015).

Welcome to the Reverse New Deal: Blaming teachers instead of Wall Street fraud; laying off teachers to appease greed.

The Reverse New Deal: As the super-wealthy bathe in gold bathtubs, buy $78,000 watches, and stash money in foreign bank accounts, Republicans can't figure out how to pay for infrastructure

Above: "When it came to taxes, Roosevelt simply believed that rich people should pay more than poor people. And in emergencies, they should pay a lot more." --Joseph J. Thorndike, Their Fair Share: Taxing the Rich in the Age of FDR, Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press, 2013, p. 45. Photo courtesy of the FDR Presidential Library and Museum.

 

Last year, Republican political strategist Matthew Dowd wrote "we need to have a well-paying jobs program tied to infrastructure improvements administered locally by cities, counties and states where people still trust government to get the job done. And this should be funded by tax policies at the federal level which put a much bigger burden on the wealthy in this country."

It's rare that I agree with a Republican, but in this case I certainly do. Unfortunately, Republican politicians do not. For example, after trying to create a 6-year funding plan for the Highway Trust Fund, Republicans settled for a 3-month patch instead - continuing a years-long trend of stop-gap (and insufficient) funding for our nation's infrastructure. Republicans in the House and Senate pointed fingers at each other for many days, with Republican House Majority Speaker John Boehner ultimately concluding, "the Senate has to do what the Senate has to do and the House has to do what the House has to do." Yep, that profound statement pretty much sums up our national infrastructure policy under Republican "leadership."

 

The main problem is this: Republicans are trying fund infrastructure without new revenue. Instead, they're trying to utilize budget gimmicks, like cutting into Social Security money, thereby setting "a precedent of raiding Social Security funds for unrelated purposes..."

 

And, as Republicans are scratching their heads and trying to figure out how to fund America's crumbling infrastructure, the super-wealthy are bathing in gold bathtubs, buying $78,000 watches, and illegally evading taxes by stashing money in foreign bank accounts--by the trillions (see graphic below). Furthermore, Republican politicians are encouraging this behavior by trying to eliminate the estate tax (so the children of the wealthy can buy expensive and frivolous items just like their parents), and by protecting illegal tax evasion from law enforcement (see, e.g., here and here).

 

All of this seems downright unpatriotic and foolish to me, but I'm obviously in the minority, as is Republican Senator Jim Inhofe when he says, "we’re supposed to defend America, and build roads and highways" ("Top GOP Senator Blames His Party For Lack Of Highway Funding," Huffington Post, May 19, 2015). And it's clear we're in the minority because the American people, by either voting for Republicans or not voting at all, have handed Congress over to anti-infrastructure Republicans--quarter of a million water main breaks per year notwithstanding. 

 

Isn't that amazing?

 

(As conservatives wring their hands and cry to the heavens, "We can't afford it!", the super-wealthy are having a good laugh, responding, "Thanks for diverting the nation's attention away from us!" Image courtesy of Demos.org.)

Why is playground equipment more creative than today's public architecture? New Deal artists & architects, where are you?

Once upon a time, we used to create magnificent public structures...

(A 1930s, PWA-funded water pumping station in Baltimore, Maryland.)

(A 1930s, WPA-built city hall in Williamsport, Maryland.)

(A 1930s, CCC-built cabin in Lost River State Park, West Virginia.)

(A post office in Oakland, Maryland, built in 1940.)

(We even decorated the inside of public buildings with murals and other artwork, like this 1939 mural in a post office in Salisbury, Maryland.)

 

(Heck, even handrails were ornate in years past, like this handrail at the post office in Easton, Maryland - a post office built in 1935.)

 (Remember when we put statues around public places like dams, bridges, and courthouses! Like this awesome 1930s statue at the Hoover Dam! .....no, you probably don't, and neither do I. These types of things were done when most of us were too young to remember or not even born yet.)

Not every structure built "back in the day" was beautiful of course, but a significant percentage of them were. There was a notion that a grand country should have grand architecture & art to inspire the people. Today's public architecture? Well, as the following photograph shows, playground equipment is often more creative and decorative than our public buildings...

(Not to be confused with a prison, this recently-built public school in West Virginia follows one of the more popular architectural styles of modern times, "Characterless Cube Style." Unfortunately, this style of architecture is frequently less interesting than surrounding architecture, for example the colorful and creative playground equipment.)

Everywhere I look I see bland public architecture. Spiritless schools, routine roads, boring bridges, colorless courthouses, and dull dams. And, funny thing is, the trend towards boring public architecture has correlated with the trend towards giving gargantuan tax breaks to the super-wealthy. It seems that we've given up on beautiful architecture so that the fortunate few can live in greater and greater luxury - so their kids can wear $78,000 watches and bathe in 24-karat gold bathtubs.

Well, at least the magical investments of the super-wealthy--made possible by their greater after-tax income & wealth...you know, trickle-down economics--have given us a plethora of interesting and great-paying jobs, right?!? Yippee!! Oh wait...

Nope, we didn't get that either. What a bum deal, huh? We've traded in beautiful architecture, strong infrastructure, and good middle-class jobs so that the children of the wealthy can eat $60,000 dinners and gloat about it on the Internet.

I don't know about you, but I prefer New Deal-type art & architecture over photographs & "selfies" of 17 year-old Kylie Jenner's $2.8 million home, Mercedes collection, "bikini-clad" body, and diamond encrusted hand. But, I guess I'm in the minority, since tens of millions of Americans have recently handed our Congress over to Republicans and Tea Partiers, knowing full well that these politicians want to eliminate the estate tax, so that the children of the wealthy will never have to work, and so government revenue will continue to be inadequate, thus ensuring that public architecture will continue to be as soulless and mundane as possible.

Welcome to America, where our playground equipment has more creative design than our modern public architecture.

Our trains and railroads need a New Deal - not perpetual under-funding and not deceitful criticism

(The New Deal's Public Works Administration (PWA) helped the "New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad Company" purchase "The Comet" diesel train in 1935. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.)

Recent power problems have left Amtrak riders "livid" over commuting delays. The problems stem from the fact that Amtrak "needs money to repair and replace infrastructure dating to the 1930s associated with the 105-year-old rail tunnel into New York. The cables responsible for the power problems are about 80 years old..." ("Riders livid as power problems cause more Amtrak delays," Associated Press, CBS News, July 25, 2015). Amtrak President Joseph Boardman has said, "the problem is finding the funding to fix the problem...We've been working on plans since 2003, but we need funding for a reliable train system."

The livid Amtrak riders need to ask themselves a question: "What political party do I vote for?" If the answer is "Republicans," then their voting behavior is part of the problem, because one of the political right's favorite pastimes is to under-fund things and then blame the ensuing problems on whoever they under-funded. For example, they'll under-fund the IRS, and then whine, "Hey, why does it take so long to get someone when you call the IRS! Government workers are lazy! We need to privatize!"

And so, with our train and railroad problems, we're getting absurd blame-shifting. For example, even as Republicans have been blocking infrastructure proposals for many years now--to the point where even a top Republican in Congress blames his party for infrastructure problems--and even as Republicans voted to cut Amtrak funding, one day after a deadly train crash, Republican Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie said the cause of railway commuting problems is actually "Amtrak's indifference to New Jersey commuters and its abject neglect of the infrastructure that New Jersey and our entire region relies upon" ("Chris Christie blames Amtrak for 'victimizing' travelers with nightmarish commutes," Reuters, Business Insider, July 24, 2015). Christie also blamed President Obama and Congress, and while the latter is a legitimate gripe, the former is not. For all his faults, Obama has made repeated calls for increased infrastructure investment...only to be repeatedly blocked and ridiculed by Republicans (Republican Congressman Paul Ryan called one of Obama's infrastructure proposals, and the related budget, "envy economics").

Governor Christie seems to ignore his own role in America's crumbling infrastructure. According to New Jersey Assembly Transportation Committee Chairman John Wisniewski, Governor Christie appears to be just as bad on infrastructure as our Republican-led Congress: "[Christie's] piece-meal approach and lack of long-term planning has left our roads and bridges in shambles." The American Society of Civil Engineers reports that 35% of New Jersey's major roads are in poor condition, which seems to back up Wisniewski's claim (although, to be fair, some degree of New Jersey's road problems certainly predate Christie's tenure).

(The PWA helped "Gulf, Mobile, and Northern" purchase two "Rebel" trains, ca. 1934, and they "worked so well that the road bought a third [Rebel] train in 1938." From: John H. White, Jr., "The American Railroad Passenger Car, Part II," Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985, pp. 620-621. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.)

Unlike many of today's political "leaders," New Deal policymakers understood that a strong rail system is a key component to a strong nation and so they used the PWA "to help the railroads out" during the Great Depression:

"Being private corporations, they were not eligible for grants, but PWA made loans totaling upward of $200,000,000 to 32 railroads for improvements [about $3.3 billion in 2014 dollars]...The outstanding allotment was the $31,900,000 loan to the Pennsylvania Railroad for completion of electrification of its lines between New York and Washington, and $6,290,000 for purchasing electric locomotives, bringing the two cities 1 hour closer to each other. On many another railroad, the Diesel-powered, lightweight streamlined trains, such as the Rebel of the Gulf, Mobile & Northern Railroad in the South, and the Flying Yankee in New England, that daily flash thousands of people from city to city, are the results of PWA loans. Still other railroads used PWA funds to iron 'kinks' out of roadbeds [and] improve rights-of-way. These allotments, made in the early days of PWA, enabled the railroads, normally one of the Nation's great employers, to recall many men to their jobs. In July 1934 nearly 70,000 men were working in on-the-site employment in work financed by PWA railroad loans." (From: Public Works Administration, America Builds: A Record of PWA, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1939, p. 189)

New Deal policymakers also used programs like the WPA and the Public Roads Administration for public work projects that included removing old tracks, eliminating dangerous grade crossings (with bridges, tunnels, and re-locations), and adding safety signals to other crossings.

Today, roadbeds that are in poor condition are a risk factor for train derailments. As a roadbed subsides or deteriorates underneath a section of track, the track will dip and bend as trains repeatedly go over it. The resulting metal fatigue can lead to a break. Perhaps this would be an excellent area for increased federal funding, as well as a source of jobs for some of the 21 million Americans who would like a full-time job but can't find one (for example, a new WPA).

Our trains and railroads need a New Deal - not perpetual under-funding and not deceitful criticism. 

(Above: An illustration of the Alaska Railroad by WPA artist F. Lo Pinto, from the WPA publication "A Guide to Alaska: Last American Frontier."  Note the snow plow on the front of the train. In the guide book, WPA writers included train tours and train routes for use by visitors to Alaska. New Deal policymakers were well aware of how important railroads were to tourism and industry.)

(Above: An excellent short documentary about the beginning, deterioration, and restoration of the "Flying Yankee." The "Flying Yankee" was made possible with PWA funding. Original YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muH7bSf5lo8.)

Republicans wants to use Social Security to pay for infrastructure, and they also want to make it easier for super-wealthy Americans to engage in illegal tax evasion

(WPA workers on a bridge project in Buffalo, New York, 1936. Photo courtesy of the National Archives and the New Deal Network.)

Republican and Tea Party politicians want to utilize Social Security money to help pay for infrastructure, thereby setting "a precedent of raiding Social Security funds for unrelated purposes."

Last year, on the other hand, the Republican National Committee tried to make it easier for super-wealthy Americans to engage in illegal tax evasion, prompting one financial expert to say, "It is mind-boggling that a major political party would even consider endorsing a resolution to facilitate tax evasion." And that was not the first time that Republicans and Tea Partiers have tried to protect illegal tax evasion by the super-wealthy (see, e.g., "Policing Tax Evasion Could Save Billions, But Republicans Won't Fund Enforcement," Huffington Post, April 29, 2011).

(Image courtesy of Demos.)

The United States is losing trillions of dollars due to illegal tax evasion, and most of it is from rich Americans using foreign bank accounts and sketchy tax havens. But, instead of going after tax cheats, the GOP/Tea Party has created a situation where the rest of us have to pay extra taxes "to make up for the funds lost to tax cheating." And now, to add insult to injury, they want to start using our retirement funds to pay for infrastructure repairs even as poverty is increasing among retirees.

This is worth repeating: Not only do we have to pay more taxes, tolls, fees, and fines, at the state & local level, to subsidize illegal tax evasion by the wealthy--tax evasion that the political rights endorses--but we also have to sacrifice our retirement security to pay for infrastructure repairs (if the political right gets its way).

This is what happens when you live in a plutocracy. White collar crime is promoted, and the financial security of the middle-class and poor is repeatedly attacked.   

Former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich recently pointed out, "Our only hope for genuine change is if poor, working class, middle class, black, Latino, and white come together in a powerful movement to take back our economy and democracy from the moneyed interests that now control both." He's right, but I'm not holding my breath for that to happen. Too many people are more interested in the goings-on of Kim Kardashian's rear end than in the political & economic matters that are going to affect (and eventually destroy) their lives. And too many people believe that Jeb Bush or Hillary Clinton--two people who are closely tied to Wall Street--are going to make things better.

(A mini-documentary I made about infrastructure and the WPA.)

The Great Trickle-Down Scam Exposed: As the fortunes of billionaires grow, so does the number of children living in poverty

(A young boy gets his hearing tested in a WPA health clinic in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, ca. 1935-1943. New Deal policymakers greatly expanded health services to children. The situation today? See "Poverty threatens health of U.S. children," American Academy of Pediatrics, May 4, 2013. Photo courtesy of the National Archives and the New Deal Network.)

Billionaires: "All together the 400 wealthiest Americans are worth a staggering $2.29 trillion, up $270 billion from a year ago" (Forbes, September 29, 2014).

Children: "A higher percentage of children live in poverty now than did during the Great Recession...About 22% of children in the U.S. lived below the poverty line in 2013, compared with 18% in 2008" (USA Today, July 21, 2015).

We also know that the number of homeless children in America has reached record levels, the middle-class has shrunk in every state, and wages have been stagnating or dropping for many years despite increased worker productivity and increased corporate profits.

(See "CEO Pay Has Increased About 876 Percent Since 1978," Huffington Post, August 29, 2013 and "CEO pay more than 300 times average workers in 2014," USA Today, June 21, 2015)

(These children are receiving milk from a WPA program in St. Paul, Minnesota, ca. 1935-1943. New Deal policymakers greatly enhanced nutritional opportunities for low-income children. The situation today? The political right--which has recently taken control of Congress--has repeatedly compared people receiving food assistance (many of whom are children) to "wild animals" and "lazy pigs" (see, e.g., here, here, here, and here. Photo courtesy of the National Archives and the New Deal Network.)

We've been handing out gargantuan tax breaks to the super-wealthy for the past several decades, under the promise that their miraculous investments would make life better for everyone. Indeed, the Republican Party is so doped up on trickle-down economics that they're trying to protect illegal tax evasion by millionaires & billionaires. Worse still, even as all the evidence shows that trickle-down economics is a colossal failure, tens of millions of voters are eager to cast a ballot for someone like Jeb Bush, who will promote more trickle-down economics and has said that Americans need to work longer hours - even as they're already working longer hours (and getting less vacation time) than just about every other developed country.

The American electorate has displayed an endless capacity to be deceived. I have little doubt that the child poverty rate could climb to 75%, and that the Forbes 400 could add several more trillion dollars to their collective wealth, and millions would still vote for a candidate who said, "We need to cut taxes on the wealthy to spur economic growth."

 (A WPA poster advertising a children's art exhibit. New Deal policymakers thought art was important to a child's creative development, so they offered free art classes for them and frequently displayed their art in various galleries and exhibitions. The situation today? Decades of tax breaks for the super-wealthy, and the recent fraud-fueled recession, have necessitated funding cutbacks, or even complete elimination, of public school art programs. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photograph Division.)

With New Deal infrastructure & policies in place after World War II, the middle-class grew like never before or since. The economy expanded along New Deal roads, across New Deal bridges, and out of New Deal airports. Taxes were higher on the wealthy (thanks to New Deal policymakers), unions were stronger (thanks to New Deal legislation), banking was more stable (thanks to New Deal programs like FDIC), retirement was more secure (thanks to Social Security), and so on. 

But as long as millions of Americans ignore history, and keep listening to think tanks and media outlets funded by the super-wealthy, none of these New Deal facts matter much. The electorate will simply buy into the next trickle-down scam...condemning even more children to poverty and homelessness.

Isn't that amazing?

A half-century old, functionally obsolete bridge collapses in California - while Republicans seek to cut infrastructure spending and give tax breaks to the super-wealthy (with UPDATE)

(In the two-minute video above, we see the collapsed bridge on California's I-10, as well as related infrastructure problems in California.)

A bridge on California's I-10 collapsed during a flood yesterday, injuring a motorist and causing serious traffic problems. The bridge was built in 1967 and was listed as functionally obsolete by the Federal Highway Administration. Functionally obsolete bridges "are those that do not have adequate lane widths, shoulder widths, or vertical clearances to serve current traffic demand, or those that may be occasionally flooded." Photos from the bridge collapse appear to show a bridge that was not high enough to handle flood waters (and/or perhaps the bridge supports were not strong enough to handle today's increasingly turbulent weather).

As of 2014, California had 2,501 bridges that were structurally deficient and 4,306 bridges that were functionally obsolete (link). 

Meanwhile, because they want to give tax breaks to millionaires & billionaires, and because they want to increase military spending, Republican and Tea Party politicians want to cut funding for infrastructure. In fact, they want to cut funding for just about every domestic program, so that they can divert money to the super-wealthy and to Mid-East interventions.

(See "Top GOP Senator Blames His Party for Lack of Highway Funding," Huffington Post, May 19, 2015)

So, we're stuck with old, inadequate, and sometimes dangerous old bridges...and/or the middle-class & poor will be forced to pay more taxes, tolls, fees, and fines, at the state & local level, to pay for upgrades... despite the fact the middle-class has been hammered with stagnant or reduced wages over the past several decades, and despite the fact that the middle-class has shrunk in every state since 2000 (while the super-wealthy have added hundreds of billions of dollars to their personal fortunes).

During the New Deal, the WPA employed the jobless to engage in 124,000 projects to build, repair, or improve bridges and viaducts. And these bridges and viaducts served America for many decades (Indeed, many still are). And we could do the same today, if the GOP/Tea Party would stop coddling the super-wealthy and stop calling low-income Americans "wild animals" and "lazy pigs."

UPDATE (7-21-2015): According to the California Dept. of Transportation, the bridge was rated "functionally obsolete" because it required motorists to slow down as they approached the bridge. The cause of the collapse seems to be the fact that rushing waters ate away at one of the bridge's anchoring points. The water beneath the bridge had been diverted from its normal flow path, which is considered a common occurrence in desert areas. Given this, it would seem that the bridge would benefit by being higher and having anchoring points further away from the stream bed (or anchoring of a different design). This collapse could be a warning about other low-lying bridges that run over over desert streams and rivers, especially in view of the fact that we're experiencing more extreme weather.