[Congressional Record Volume 157, Number 182 (Wednesday, November 30, 2011)]
[House]
[Page H7933]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 WHO SAYS GOVERNMENT CAN'T CREATE JOBS?

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Jackson) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Who says, Mr. Speaker, that government can't 
create jobs? The greatest need of the American people today is jobs, 
but the question before them is this: Who is responsible and how should 
jobs be created?
  Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, liberals, moderates, and 
conservatives all agree that the private sector is the primary source 
of jobs. However, with 9 percent official unemployment--the reality is 
it's much higher--and 25 million Americans either unemployed or 
underemployed, it's self-evident that the private sector has not 
supplied enough jobs and either can not or will not create enough full-
time jobs today to employ the 25 million people who need them.

                              {time}  1020

  So what do we do? Throw our hands up and say, ``Nothing can be 
done,'' Congress?
  Democrats generally believe in ``priming the pump,'' through deficit 
spending if necessary, to create jobs and stimulate the economy in 
order to put the overall economy back on track during these times when 
the private sector has obviously failed us. In the past, many 
Republicans have generally agreed; but this current Tea Party-
Republican Party, all of whom have government jobs and employ 
government staffs, doesn't agree and generally argues that the 
government can't create jobs. Really?
  President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, we are reminded by Michael 
Hiltzik in his new book ``The New Deal: A Modern History,'' reveals a 
different truth, which is the source of the following information:
  FDR was sworn into office on March 4, 1933. He came up with the idea 
himself of a Civilian Conservation Corps on March 13, the first jobs 
program of the New Deal. He presented his idea to a White House aide, 
Raymond Moley, on March 14--an idea that he had just come up with the 
night before. The idea was to put platoons of young unemployed men to 
work in the forests and the national parks. That very afternoon, a memo 
and a skeleton bill went out to the four Secretaries who would be 
involved in implementing his CCC plan--Frances Perkins, Labor; Henry A. 
Wallace, Agriculture; Harold L. Ickes, Interior; and George H. Dern, 
War--the first interdisciplinary agency of the New Deal.
  The next day, on March 15, the four Secretaries returned a joint 
response proposing a wider relief program, encompassing not only a 
Civilian Conservation Corps, but a public works program and a grants-
in-aid to States and municipalities for relief. On March 21, FDR sent a 
message to Congress involving, among other things, his idea of a CCC. 
In his message, he observed ``more important . . . than the material 
gains will be the moral and spiritual value of such work . . . We can 
take a vast army of these unemployed out to healthful surroundings.''
  Congress debated and passed the Civilian Conservation Corps program 
in 8 days, on March 29. By early April, the CCC was open for business. 
The first registrant was 19-year-old Fiore Rizzo of New York, who 
arrived on April 7 in a cab with three of his friends at an Army 
recruiting station in downtown Manhattan. Rizzo belonged to a family of 
13, whose father had not worked in 3 years.
  So how did these government-created jobs work out?
  The average enrollee signed up at the age of 18\1/2\, stayed for 9 
months--6 months was the minimum tour, 2 years the maximum--and gained 
up to 30 pounds during his term, thanks to three square meals a day 
served up by the Army quartermasters as fuel for daily labor.
  The program ramped up quickly. By July, there were 1,300 camps 
housing 275,000 enrollees, already working vigorously on projects that 
would rank among the most notable legacies of the New Deal. Before the 
CCC ended and with the coming of war mobilization in 1942, the CCC 
built 125,000 miles of roads, 46,000 bridges, more than 300,000 dams to 
check erosion, planted more than 3 billion trees, and strung 89,000 
miles of telephone wire.
  The camps instilled in many of these young men the concept of an 
American identity. No doubt the comradery was fostered by a shared 
resentment of the camps' martial regimen, the rising with the bugler's 
call, the mandate to keep their bunks and footlockers in order, and the 
heeding of senior officers without discussion. Mr. Speaker, I can only 
imagine that, today, these Army quartermasters would demand that our 
young men pull up their pants. The Army, too, found the experience 
valuable. As War Secretary George Dern confided to Frances Perkins a 
year into the program, his officer corps had had to learn ``to govern 
men by leadership, explanation and diplomacy rather than discipline. 
The knowledge is priceless.''
  The CCC would serve as a model for national service programs of a 
later era, such as the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps and VISTA.
  ``There was pride in the work,'' one former boy still recalls 60 
years later. ``We built something, and I knew I helped . . . It was 
something you could take pride in, and there wasn't a lot of pride 
available in those days.''
  Among the New Deal programs, the CCC would inspire almost universal 
affection, even more so than Social Security.
  Mr. Speaker, the Federal Government can create jobs.

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