Make work programs part of recovery plan

Stuart Weiss, Las Vegas

Monday, March 2, 2009 | 2:06 a.m.

Then and today.

President Barack Obama’s stimulus package is similar to but less sound than Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s. What Obama has put in one bill the New Deal placed in 16. In 1933 alone the Public Works Administration, the Tennessee Valley Authority and, not least, the Civilian Conservation Corps elicited bipartisan support and put people to work. Later I saw the Works Progress Administration pave the sidewalks that led to my schools and build water reservoirs, tennis courts and skating rinks, even as I sold the workers lemonade.

There were also programs to refinance home and farm mortgages and close bad banks while guaranteeing deposits in good banks. There also was a program to separate investing from banking (since undone and a major problem today).

But the first three programs, and especially the CCC, make my original point. They were not only shovel-ready, more important, they were philosophically Puritanical. They required work.

Work programs are healthier for recipients and politically make a much stronger argument than welfare, which tends to breed idleness and crime, and offers something for nothing. Work, for whose who are able, helps to sustain the recipients’ and children’s health and self-esteem, while contributing to the community. And today, as always, there is work to be done, even if it is removing graffiti. It may not be shovel-ready, but there is always a broom, even a paint scraper.

President Obama should think about the possibilities and advantages of all kinds of work programs, and our Puritan values, if he wishes to get support from the other side of the congressional aisle.

The writer is professor emeritus of American history at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville.