A New Deal for Arizona

(A National Youth Administration construction project in Arizona, 1936. Photo courtesy of the FDR Presidential Library and Museum.)

In yesterday's blog post, I suggested that instead of constantly cutting the budget, and constantly piling up regressive taxes, tolls, fees, and fines on the middle-class & poor, Arizona could have a New Deal instead (with some help from the federal government of course). Here are some New Deal facts & figures for Arizona:

Civil Works Administration (CWA):

In January of 1934, there were over 17,000 Arizonans working in the CWA, building or repairing schools, roads, bridges, and more.

(From the "Analysis of Civil Works Program Statistics," p. 18, 1939)

Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC):

Between 1933 and 1942, 41,300 Arizona men were employed in the CCC. This included about 17,400 junior and veteran enrollees, 19,500 Indians, and 4,400 staff. Among their many accomplishments was the planting of 7.4 million trees.

(From Perry H. Merrill's book, "Roosevelt's Forest Army: A History of the Civilian Conservation Corps," 1933-1942, p. 109, 1981)

(These Arizona children are broadcasting a radio program that they wrote in a WPA class. Photo courtesy of the FDR Presidential Library and Museum.)

Public Works Administration (PWA):

By 1939, the PWA had contributed $12 million in funding towards 122 infrastructure projects in Arizona. In today's dollars, that's about $202 million.

(From "America Builds: The Record of PWA," p. 285, 1939)

National Youth Administration (NYA):

During academic year 1939-1940, 86 schools, colleges, and universities in Arizona participated in the NYA program, employing about 2,000 young men and women.

(From the "Final Report of the National Youth Administration, Fiscal Years 1936-1943," pp. 246-247, 1944)

(These men are learning about auto mechanics in a National Youth Administration class in Phoenix, Arizona, 1936. Photo courtesy of the FDR Presidential Library and Museum.)

Public Works of Art Project (PWAP):

Between 1933 and 1934, in Region 13 of the PWAP (New Mexico and Arizona), unemployed artists were paid to create 7 murals, 49 water color paintings, 70 oil paintings, 299 Indian-related works of art, and more, to decorate public buildings and parks.

(From Public Works of Art Project, "Report of the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury to Federal Emergency Relief Administrator, December 8, 1933 - June 30, 1934," p. 8, 1934)

Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA):

In February of 1935, 557 college students in Arizona were employed in FERA's College Student Aid Program. This was a program "undertaken in order to enable young persons who would not otherwise have been able to do so to continue their education, and thereby reduce the influx of young workers into the labor market" (recall that during the Great Depression there was a large drop in the demand for labor).

(From the "Final Statistical Report of the Federal Emergency Relief Administration," pp. 64 and 232, 1942)

Works Progress Administration (WPA):

Between 1935 and 1943, WPA workers in Arizona produced 1.3 million articles of clothing; served 4 million school lunches; created or improved 2,500 miles of roads; built or improved 322 bridges; installed or improved 5,400 culverts; engaged in 280 projects to build, repair, or improve schools; created or improved 16 parks; installed 162 miles of water lines; constructed 57,000 linear feet of new airport & airfield runway; and more.

(From the "Final Report on the WPA Program, 1935-43," pp. 134-136, 1946)

Post Offices:

During the New Deal era, the U.S Treasury built Post Office buildings in Arizona and commissioned artists to decorate them. See the Living New Deal's Arizona pages for examples.

(To learn about Civilian Conservation Corps activities at Grand Canyon National Park, see the Living New Deal here. WPA poster, courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.)

The Reverse New Deal: Arizona reduces funding for education, and jeopardizes medical care for low-income residents, to please corporations

(WPA poster advertising free classes. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.)

Yesterday, Arizona legislators cut $99 million (or more) from the state's higher education budget, reducing "funding for the state’s flagship universities, Arizona State University and the University of Arizona, and eliminat[ing] state money completely for several community colleges." In response, an Arizona graduate student correctly noted, "These [legislators] are anti-tax people, but they’re going to tax Arizona students, because they’re going to have higher tuition and more fees to pay and more loans to take on because of these cuts. These anti-tax people are tax people in another name." (See "Arizona Legislature Passes Deep Cuts To Public Universities," Huffington Post, March 8, 2015)

Arizona legislators are also seeking to "save $37 million by cutting the rate at which Medicaid providers are reimbursed for their health-care services...The loss of that money punches a big hole in the economy and has prompted some of the providers to question whether they can continue to work" ("Legislature OKs $9.1 billion budget after overnight marathon," AZ Central, March 7, 2015).

(WPA nurses prepare to make house calls in New Orleans, 1936. New Deal policymakers created jobs for unemployed health professionals to help low-income Americans with their medical needs. They thought it was important that people (a) work in their chosen profession and (b) receive health care, regardless of income. Sadly, such thinking is falling by the wayside today, as politicians keep catering to their super-wealthy campaign donors. Photo courtesy of the National Archives and the New Deal Network.)

As Arizona legislators have been making deep budget cuts that will hurt their middle-class & poor residents, they've also handed out gargantuan tax breaks to corporations (see here, here, and here), so that the governor's office can now say, in response to deep budget cuts, "We can’t spend money that doesn't exist and that we don’t have" ("Arizona Legislature Passes Deep Cuts To Public Universities," Huffington Post, March 8, 2015).

"We can't spend what we don't have." "We have to live within our means." These are the biggest and longest-running jokes in America, and many voters keep falling for it. The Republicans come in to power, hand out lots of tax breaks to their super-wealthy buddies, and then throw up their hands and say, "Hey, we can't spend money that we don't have!" And, in instances where they do want to raise revenue, they do it through an array of regressive taxes, tolls, fees, and fines at the state & local level. For example, to help balance the budget, and preserve tax breaks for the wealthy, Republican Governor of Arizona Doug Ducey wanted to increase car registration fees by 100%. Car registration fees are regressive revenue mechanisms - meaning, the lower your income the greater your burden. The political right LOVES to implement regressive taxes, tolls, fees, and fines - to pay for all the tax breaks that they hand out to their super-wealthy campaign donors (see my blog post "Ten Ways The Political Right Is Vacuuming Money Out Of Your Wallet With Their Trickle-Down Economics. Welcome To "The Great Right-Wing Revenue Switcheroo.")

Instead of tax cuts for the wealthy and pain for everyone else, wouldn't it be great if Arizona could have a New Deal? Check out my blog post tomorrow to see what the New Deal did for Arizona.

WPA Sculptures for Illinois: An example of what can happen when opportunities overpower insults

Above: The description for this undated WPA photo reads, "Illinois sculptors create works for schools, playgrounds and parks." It's hard to imagine something like this happening today, given the extreme cynicism that many of our politicians and opinion-makers have towards unemployed and low-income Americans. Indeed, instead of discussions about public job programs (like the one above), you're more likely to hear today's politicians, pundits, and radio show hosts scold those in need, calling them "parasites," "takers," "moochers," "lazy pigs," and "wild animals" - or perhaps even recommending that some of them should be sterilized. As for me, I'd prefer the sculptures, infrastructure work, historic preservation, park development, and so on, that a public employment program could produce. What about you? Photo courtesy of the National Archives and the New Deal Network.

Ferguson, Missouri: The intersection where trickle-down economics meets racial discrimination

(President Roosevelt delivers a fireside chat on September 30, 1934. Not all of the tax policies of FDR and his colleagues were wise, but one certainly was: Raising taxes on the super-wealthy. Photo courtesy of the FDR Presidential Library and Museum.)

The political right has spent decades reducing tax rates for millionaires & billionaires. As result, we now have a federal government that is less willing & able to financially assist state & local governments. A Republican politician in Missouri recently said (in regard to his state's deteriorating infrastructure), "You're seeing states all across the country that are looking to do something, because they realize you can't count on the federal government." So, he's pushing for an increase in his state's sales tax, which will disproportionately burden the middle-class and poor. What he doesn't say, of course, is that his Republican colleagues in Congress are creating this mess by constantly protecting Corporate America and the super-wealthy from increased taxation at the federal level (and also protecting them from law enforcement when they engage in tax evasion).

This tax-cuts-for-the-wealthy foolishness is also running rampant at the state level. For example, in 2014, over a veto from the governor, the Missouri legislature reduced income and business taxes. One editorial board just couldn't contain its joy over this trickle-down economics victory: "One Midwestern state is showing everyone else, including policymakers in Washington, how it's done" ("Missouri Passes A Needed Tax Cut Over Governor's Veto," Investor's Business Daily, May 8, 2014).

(***Are tax-cuts-for-the-wealthy good for society? See, "Missouri Dept. of Transportation Budget Shortfall Expected To Impact Local Roads And Bridges," OzarksFirst.com, March 3, 2015***)

 (A WPA road project in Harford County, Maryland, 1936. During the New Deal, massive federal investments were made in American infrastructure. Photo courtesy of the University of Maryland College Park Archives.)

A very simple fact is ignored by those who scream for more tax-cuts-for-the-wealthy: The revenue lost through such cuts is going to be made up for with other revenue initiatives - and those other revenue initiatives are going to target middle-class and poor Americans, through a variety of taxes, tolls, fees, fines, and utility rate increases at the state & local level. Indeed, this type of revenue shift has been occurring for many years now, often at the behest of Republicans (see my previous blog posts, "Ten Ways The Political Right Is Vacuuming Money Out Of Your Wallet With Their Trickle-Down Economics. Welcome To 'The Great Right-Wing Revenue Switcheroo,'" February 3, 2015, and "The Great Right-Wing Revenue Switcheroo...continued," February 17, 2015).

The top two revenue sources for Ferguson's general fund are sales taxes and municipal court fines (see pages v and 50-51 in Ferguson's 2013-2014 budget). Unfortunately for the city's African American population, a recent report from the Department of Justice highlights how the city has been targeting them for most of the revenue related to the fines. This has been accomplished through predatory & discriminatory law enforcement - specifically, piling up the fines for black residents and excusing fines for some well-connected white residents; all the while, believe it or not, scolding black residents for supposedly not taking personal responsibility for their behavior. Is that an awesome display of hypocrisy or what? (See, "A City Where Policing, Discrimination and Raising Revenue Went Hand in Hand," New York Times, March 4, 2015) 

(***What do you do when many super-wealthy Americans don't want to pay more taxes and also hide money in offshore bank accounts? See, "Ferguson to Increase Police Ticketing to Close City's Budget Gap," Bloomberg News, December 12, 2014. But also see, "Missouri Attorney General Sues Municipalities Over 'Predatory' Traffic Fines," Huffington Post, December 18, 2014***)

  (When times were tough, during the Great Depression, African Americans could find jobs in a variety of New Deal work programs. Above, two young men in the National Youth Administration are repairing a roof in Washington, D.C., in 1938. Today, as one Ferguson activist has pointed out, there is a lack of access to employment. Photo courtesy of the National Archives and the New Deal Network.)

The troubles of Ferguson, Missouri have been caused by a toxic mix of greed, corruption, discrimination, and right-wing politics & economics. Ferguson is the intersection where trickle-down economics meets racial discrimination. Of course, this phenomenon is not isolated to Ferguson. All across the nation, as super-wealthy Americans are enjoying historically low tax rates and record wealth (while also enjoying & utilizing offshore tax havens, tax shelters, tax loopholes, tax deductions, and so forth), the squeeze is put on everyone else to make up the revenue difference. Higher water bills, higher bridge tolls, higher sales taxes, higher DMV fees, and a higher utilization of just about any type of regressive money extraction tool available.

Let's not sugarcoat this: The middle-class and poor are being aggressively targeted for revenue, so that the massive private fortunes of the most wealthy Americans can be protected.

What Ferguson's black residents (and the rest of us) need is a New Deal. But instead of a New Deal, it's likely that they're only going to get more parking tickets and court fines. A city official stated as much while acknowledging unfair court procedures: "...the city cannot afford to lose any efficiency in our Courts, nor experience any decrease in our fines and forfeitures." In other words, "We need the money, and if we have to get it in unjust ways, well, so be it."

Isn't that amazing?

(***See my blog post, "FDR, the New Deal, and Racism," for ten examples of how New Deal policymakers tried to make a less racially discriminatory society***)

FDR and Upton Sinclair

(Upton Sinclair, by Lauren Coodley. Image scanned from a personal copy.)

When Upton Sinclair was running for governor of California in 1934 he met with President Franklin Roosevelt to discuss many policy issues. Sinclair was hoping for some political support from FDR but, ultimately, received little. Still, Sinclair retained a "deep respect" for the president and when FDR died in 1945 he wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt, "We have lost the greatest statesman of our time and it is a personal loss to every man and woman in this country whether they know it or not." (Lauren Coodley, Upton Sinclair: California Socialist, Celebrity Intellectual, Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2013, pp. 118-119, 128-129, and 149)

Coodley's book is a well-cited and highly-readable account of Sinclair's life - highlighting his prolific writing, the evolution of his political views, his many friendships with women, and much more. It not only adds to the literature on Sinclair (e.g., by examining his life in relation to feminism) but, at 181 pages, is very digestible for those not already familiar with Sinclair's life, such as myself. The book includes a number of photos & images and also a recommended reading list of Sinclair's works. I have never read any of Sinclair's writing but Coodley's book inspires me to try at least one.   

Among the many places Coodley's book can be purchased is the "Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse":

http://www.politics-prose.com/book/9780803243828

WPA Theatre: "Brothers"

(WPA poster, courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.)

According to Thomas S. Hischak, of the State University of New York at Cortland, the play "Brothers," by Herbert Ashton, Jr., is about a scientific experiment on behavior where identical twin children are placed in different environments--one wealthy, one poor (Broadway Plays and Musicals: Descriptions and Essential Facts of More Than 14,000 Shows through 2007, pp. 59-60, 2009).

WPA Artist: George Washington Hitt

(All images below are courtesy of the National Archives and the New Deal Network.)

The description for this set of photographs reads, "George Hitt, 24 years of age, striken at the age of 10 with an attack of arthritis in its most vicious form. Hitt has been almost completely disabled. His talents for producing graceful designs which he calls "Shadow Pictures" attracted attention and as a WPA Artist he has produced hundreds of silhouettes which have been placed in the Atlanta Museum of Art and in scores of libraries throughout the state."

A historical marker for George Washington Hitt can be viewed here.