Charles, Brilliant, simply brilliant. And WPA 2.0 wouldn’t be that hard of a sell pre-election. Keep it simple Kamala as Charles has suggested. No need to kill the message by too much woke speak. But, and this is a very big but, it can only happen with a Democratic Party controlled two houses of Congress. And Charles got a big part corre…
Charles, Brilliant, simply brilliant. And WPA 2.0 wouldn’t be that hard of a sell pre-election. Keep it simple Kamala as Charles has suggested. No need to kill the message by too much woke speak. But, and this is a very big but, it can only happen with a Democratic Party controlled two houses of Congress. And Charles got a big part correct - keep it away from private company government contractors. I was one once. A piggy at the trough. They only look at government to see dollar signs. The end product and beneficiaries are secondary to them and sadly, secondary to government contracting officers that only want a favorable job performance review for bringing a project in on time and under budget.
Two side notes if I may:
#1. My grandfather was a plumber pre Great Depression. The WPA put him to work. He, working for the WPA, installed the plumbing in the junior high school I attended decades later. That helped pay the mortgage and put food on the table for my mother as a young girl and teenager. There’s a huge deficit of skilled construction labor right now and has been for twenty plus years. I know. I worked in a construction related profession for an entire career. Unskilled labor construction is not a pretty sight. WPA 2.0 could fix that.
#2. I love long multi state road trips. Out west here, a multi state road trip is long by definition and, sorry to say because of the environmental harm done and to the financial benefit of the oil industry, also a right of middle class massage. But over the decades, I’ve seen rural America, small towns in the middle of nowhere, but not far from the beaten path of the interstate and state and federal highway system, decline to near death status. The old people stay and sadly see the younger people leave. They don’t want it that way and it doesn’t have to be that way. WPA 2.0 could fix that.
Great addendum to the article. Thanks so much for sharing all of this. The plumber story is a great reminder how thoroughly we’ve forgotten that bit of history. We may not be in the same type of economic crisis as the Great Depression, but it IS an economic crisis, just of a different sort.
Charles, Brilliant, simply brilliant. And WPA 2.0 wouldn’t be that hard of a sell pre-election. Keep it simple Kamala as Charles has suggested. No need to kill the message by too much woke speak. But, and this is a very big but, it can only happen with a Democratic Party controlled two houses of Congress. And Charles got a big part correct - keep it away from private company government contractors. I was one once. A piggy at the trough. They only look at government to see dollar signs. The end product and beneficiaries are secondary to them and sadly, secondary to government contracting officers that only want a favorable job performance review for bringing a project in on time and under budget.
Two side notes if I may:
#1. My grandfather was a plumber pre Great Depression. The WPA put him to work. He, working for the WPA, installed the plumbing in the junior high school I attended decades later. That helped pay the mortgage and put food on the table for my mother as a young girl and teenager. There’s a huge deficit of skilled construction labor right now and has been for twenty plus years. I know. I worked in a construction related profession for an entire career. Unskilled labor construction is not a pretty sight. WPA 2.0 could fix that.
#2. I love long multi state road trips. Out west here, a multi state road trip is long by definition and, sorry to say because of the environmental harm done and to the financial benefit of the oil industry, also a right of middle class massage. But over the decades, I’ve seen rural America, small towns in the middle of nowhere, but not far from the beaten path of the interstate and state and federal highway system, decline to near death status. The old people stay and sadly see the younger people leave. They don’t want it that way and it doesn’t have to be that way. WPA 2.0 could fix that.
Great addendum to the article. Thanks so much for sharing all of this. The plumber story is a great reminder how thoroughly we’ve forgotten that bit of history. We may not be in the same type of economic crisis as the Great Depression, but it IS an economic crisis, just of a different sort.
Thanks again.