State Senator Judy Robson recently wrote an article on Fighting Bob, suggesting that a better use of bailout money is to recreate the Civilian Conservation Corps:

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) lasted only nine years, from 1933 to 1943, but its achievements and its message have endured.

Conservation crews built fire trails, recreational trails, lookout towers, dams, and telephone lines.

They built lodges and campsites in state and national parks. They fought floods, forest fires, and soil erosion. They improved fish and wildlife habitat. From quarries, they hauled rock for buildings and limestone for farm fields.
...
America was in the grip of the Great Depression when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corps. One quarter of the population was unemployed. Families struggled to put food on the table. They feared for their future.

FDR’s New Deal created a measure of economic security for Americans. Some of the initiatives were temporary, like the CCC. Others continue today, like Social Security for retirees.

I cannot even begin to stress what a horrible idea it would be to recreate this system in any way, shape, or form today.  In a previous post, one of my commenters, Corry White, asked that I write more on the idea that FDR actually turned what would have been an approximately 3 year recession into the Great Depression, and made things far worse through his policies than he helped.  I am still gathering all the materials to write that post Corry, but consider this to be a teaser.

Now to be somewhat fair to FDR on the CCC, it wasn't the worst idea that he had.  Probably the worst idea FDR had was bulk buying of gold by force in an attempt to artificially prop up prices, closely followed by the National Recovery Administration which not only created artificial price controls and large cartels, but also had jack booted enforcement officers roaming through larger cities holding people without cause, demanding to know if they had worked overtime, which the administration had decided was now illegal.

The problem with a system like the CCC, especially today, is that it provides no multiplicative value to the economy.  By that, I mean that it does put people to work in the short term, creating whatever the government decides would be nice, like parks, and towers, and such... but that's all it does.  Parks, while nice to relax in, and enjoyable in leisure time, are absolutely worthless from a perspective of economic growth.  They take up space, and create nothing new in return.  From a public relations perspective they are great though, as it does evoke great imagery of people with their shirts off, shovel in hand, working hard in the dirt, creating something out of nothing.

But what happens when the park is complete, or the tower has risen?  You have to spend more money, in order to hire more people, to create something new.  Otherwise, those workers will be unemployed again.  Now in FDR's case,  he had an added advantage of the fact that much of America still had far to go infrastructure wise.  Building roads, dams and bridges were low hanging fruit that helped to create a national infrastructure, which to this day still stands.  But of course that's part of the problem for today... they still stand.  What infrastructure would you create now with a modern day CCC?  More highways?  I'm sure James Rowen would love that.  More fire towers?  We've decommissioned almost all the ones we currently have because modern technology has made them obsolete.

Even if we look at the ideas for infrastructure projects that are currently on the boards, we see that they are not filled with vital needs.  Governors and mayors all over the country are sending in their wish lists to Obama Claus for things like duck ponds, dog parks, tennis courts, sports complexes of all shapes and sizes, and "Lifestyle Centers".  These hardly the roads, bridges and telephone wires that Sen. Robson penned longingly for.  What they're great for however, are ribbon cutting ceremonies, which politicians love.  Fixing a bridge hardly creates the same ceremony.

More importantly, expanding already existing infrastructure has diminishing returns over time.  If you expand a highway to handle 100,000 cars an hour, but only 25,000 cars an hour use it, then you've wasted your money... despite the fact that you put people to work on the expansion.  That money would have been better invested elsewhere, rather than on road construction.

Governor Doyle's requests are filled mostly with expanding dubious infrastructure, and almost nothing dedicated to maintenance.  Mayor Tom Barrett seems to desire street cars more than Marlon Brando, along with more libraries, and new "affordable housing"... despite the fact that home prices everywhere are dropping without government help, making it more affordable than ever to get housing.  Milwaukee Talkie would like to create a Federal commission modeled after BRAC to manage it all, under the imagined notion that somehow the base closure commission was never politicized by Congress.

The larger problem is... how is this a better allocation of money?  The dollars that are used to create these wonderful parks, etc. aren't going to come from the ether.  They are tax dollars, which if not collected by the IRS (or the Wisconsin Dept. of Revenue), could have been spent somewhere else, or invested in a company on the stock market.  Perhaps some of those dollars would be used to create small businesses.  When we invest in business, rather than blindly on already existing infrastructure, over time, that investment grows.  A small business will hire employees (putting people to work), will grow if managed properly, and perhaps hire more employees.  A park can't do that.  In fact, park maintenance (even if partially offset by user fees) still require tax dollars to maintain.  They end up being a net drain on the economy.

And so while Sen. Robson waxes eloquently of times past, when we put people to work building parks and bridges, we need to consider whether this is the kind of work that has real value for the economy.  Yes, it makes the individual who is now building something feel better for a short time, but is work simply for the sake of work, worthy of our tax dollars?

What we need to do, is allow individuals to invest their own money in successful private enterprises, so that our economy can grow again, by creating real growth, both in jobs and in output.  Putting people to work building parks and towers will only make people feel better in the short term, and cost us money in the long term, for little benefit.