The National Hustle

Finally! I feel as though a great weight has been lifted off my shoulders.  My attempt to educate my dear readers on the historical connotations in the recent (can I even say that any more?) economic stimulus bill will conclude and I can go on to much more interesting /controversial topics such as Twitter(?)  and/or lighthouses.

But before I can go on, I want to impart my incredibly average sense of political, financial and social awareness into reviving the Civilian Conservation Corps, with a twist.  As I mentioned in my overview of the program, this organization was formed to provide the masses of unemployed with jobs conserving our natural resources.  Millions of man hours helped beautify national parks, prevent forest fires, and build bridges over Chorro Creek in San Luis Obispo, CA (thanks B, now make it rain in the donate box!)

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All right, so you have suffered through my obvious adulation for the New Deal, you have gotten an all too brief synopsis of two of the more prominent programs, done a bit of research on the PWA and CCC yourself, and you are waiting for the money shot, right? What is The Camo’s point? Well as a strong believer in the old maxim; we can learn from the past, I am going to utilize the example set forth by the PWA and CCC in the 1930’s and adapt them to help with our current economic crisis.

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One of my favorite New Deal programs (after you have taken a 400 level class named “America in the Great Depression, you are entitled to have a favorite) has always been the Civilian Conservation Corps or CCC. Something about serving this great nation while helping build trails in national parks, planting over 5 billion trees, or improving our national power grid made me want to strap on some hiking boots, don a flannel shirt, grab some heavy tools and help rebuild America from the ground up. Lack of hand sanitizer, fear of blisters, and uncertain exposure to new episodes of Lost inevitably lead to disavowing myself from such romantic inclinations, but for over 3 million hearty souls during the Great Depression, the CCC provided rewarding work, three square meals, and a stipend of $30 per month.

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In 1933, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office in the midst of the worst economic crisis since… (Oh wait, it was the Great Depression). Roosevelt moved quickly to establish a set of programs that he and his advisers deemed necessary to aid economic recovery of a struggling nation. Collectively, these programs became known as the “New Deal,” and gradually began to make inroads into the monetary crisis facing our nation at that time.

Today, we face a similarly dire economic climate, so what better time to examine the effectiveness of the “New Deal” programs, and see if some tenets of them might prove effective in the bleak fiscal circumstances we find today.  Just so you are not disappointed with the truncated length of this entry, this will be part one in a mind-numbingly boring multi-segment study (Don’t worry I will get back to mocking things soon). Continue reading