Part I
My dad likes to describe himself as a NRA Democrat, but he
jokes that he's referring to one of the earliest creations of Franklin D.
Roosevelt's "New Deal" called the "National Recovery Administration". I think one of his favorite possessions is a
portrait of FDR made in the 30's given to him by my great aunt. What makes that
portrait special is that it also has a tiny NRA sticker in the bottom right
corner.
I've only recently
come to appreciate the portrait, for more than its historical value
anyway. Through my last 2 years in high school and my first year in college, I
was a firm Libertarian. I despised social safety nets and so called
"welfare-queens", believed firmly in "that government is best
which governs least" and thought that only a totally unregulated market
could bring about economic prosperity. I can picture seventeen year old self
fuming over Prof. Krissman's claim that three main "isms"
(Imperialism, Colonialism, and Capitalism) are responsible for so much cultural
devastation. But ever since the recession started, I've drifted away from
my laissez faire philosophy and since then I've adopted a very different
political and economic outlook. It's hard to argue with the case of Brazil (RCA
p. 46-47) or with the sad history of Malawi (C&C Ch 17). But, I can feel
the lingering libertarian inside saying "No! This is what happens when
government gets involved with the economy! That's why things are such a mess!"
So, rather
than read about faraway places and stay in this fog, I want to see how these kinds
of policies affect us here. I'd like to talk to business owners in
downtown Arcata and see how they're doing during this terrible recession, stop
by city hall and learn what they did with money given to them by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (enter your zip
code to see the projects in your area!) and above all, see the mechanics
of these policies in action and how they affect my neighbors. I want to
have a more detailed understanding of these economic policies and though
I'm fairly confident in my own current position, I'm eager to review it and
learn more. I don't want to give the impression that I don't anything about
these issues, only that I know my knowledge is superficial at best. Should be
interesting!
Part
II
It has occurred to me
that I have chosen a rather daunting topic. Never mind that there are thousands
of Economics textbooks on the market already (pun intended) along with the
dozens of books on the separate subjects of The New Deal, The Fair Deal and The
Great Society and that I'm just a lowly undergraduate anthropology student
writing the equivalent of a term paper on these subjects! Potential information
overload notwithstanding, I simply want know whether or not Obama's entry into
this saga of government intervention in the economy was successful or not. But
that depends upon who you ask. This isn't just a question of which side of the
political aisle you happen to be on, but also on that old adage: cui bono? The
drug traffickers benefit from the cocaine they import from Bolivia (C&C Ch
16) but the Bolivian people suffer for it (along with MANY others, but that's
another paper topic). The rich benefit from the innovative medical treatments
to combat disease and infection that our medical establishment invents but the
poor don't (RCA p.48) because of the way our society is set up.
I'm not trying to lure
the reader into a relativistic tailspin. I'm simply pointing out that when it
comes to the subject of economics, there are many systems and scenarios that
"work". It's just a question of who they work for: whose quality of
life increases or decreases and what is the cost? Ever since the start of the
Recession a few years back, I think it has become painfully apparent that total
unregulated laissez-faire capitalism is designed to benefit those already in
power and who already have money while the rest of the population gets
gradually poorer and poorer (RCA Ch 3). After all, the time in American History
with the least amount of regulation and government oversight of the economy is
now called The Gilded Age. The Great
Depression came on the heels of a decade dominated by financial recklessness
and corporate greed. One could even argue that Ronald Reagan’s economic
policies laid the groundwork for the current Recession.
Which this leads me back to the main focus of my project: the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (usually shortened to the Recovery Act or the stimulus) and whether it "worked" or not. Once again, cui bono?
However, while this project was able to convince me of the remarkable good that can be created as a result of the government and the people working together, the long term relationship between these two entities has been a rocky, sometimes violent, one to say the least. Reading over some sections of the textbooks (specifically C&C Part 4, RCA Ch. 2, 3) has often upset me. To plainly see just how loaded the dice are when it comes to upper 1% in this world and how they’re able to influence regulations and legislation in their own favor at the expense of everyone else is sickening.
Which this leads me back to the main focus of my project: the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (usually shortened to the Recovery Act or the stimulus) and whether it "worked" or not. Once again, cui bono?
- Create new jobs and save existing ones
- Spur economic activity and invest in long-term growth
- Foster unprecedented levels of accountability and transparency in government spending
- Tax cuts and benefits for millions of working families and businesses
- Funding for entitlement programs, such as unemployment benefits
- Funding for federal contracts, grants and loans
However, while this project was able to convince me of the remarkable good that can be created as a result of the government and the people working together, the long term relationship between these two entities has been a rocky, sometimes violent, one to say the least. Reading over some sections of the textbooks (specifically C&C Part 4, RCA Ch. 2, 3) has often upset me. To plainly see just how loaded the dice are when it comes to upper 1% in this world and how they’re able to influence regulations and legislation in their own favor at the expense of everyone else is sickening.
According to the website dedicated to monitoring the Recovery Act, it was supposed to
do three things:
The stimulus provided
$787 billion (later increased to $840 billion) in three main forms:
Punching in Arcata's zip
code into the search bar, I found that $14,652,594
(!) was spent in this area and $1,631,112 on HSU alone! It's trickier to find
out precisely what this money was actually "for" so I'm going to
have to call around and (hopefully) find someone who actually knows what this
money funded and whether or not it was effective. This means calling community
health centers, elementary schools, Greyhound (no seriously Greyhound (in this
area) got over a million.) and many of the other recipients of the stimulus
money. Looking forward to it!
Part
III
When
doing the kind of fieldwork that I chose to do, there are certain stupid
questions that I had to ask. The major one was: did you find the money
useful?
But
wait, let me back up. I selected a number of businesses and institutions to
interview about the grants they received from
the stimulus act. Some never got back to me so my selection was more
limited than I'd like. The two businesses I'm going to talk about are Ausland Builders INC. and Alchemy Construction. I wish I had gotten more variety but
at least this way I'll be dealing with similar
situations. There’s always the possibility of radically different
interpretations (C&C Ch 3) but hopefully both the positive and negative
comments will be based on a similar outlook which in this case is about what’s
good for the business.
Ausland Builders (though they're
located in Oregon) did some work in Humboldt County for the Forest Service. The
grant they received was $ 1,015,649. I spoke with a representative of the
company who said that the government hired them to add a second floor to a
local Forest Service building. Up in Oregon, they were able to install a new
heating system for the Three Rivers Elementary School and for the local high
school (the buildings were heated using old fashioned and expensive oil, now
they're heated through the use of wood pellets which is saving the school a lot
of money). The representative said the project was very successful though
getting paid was a bit of a headache since the state government was hard to
work with.
Alchemy
Construction also praised the grant her company received ($348,618). The
representative I spoke to was named Amy and she was
very enthusiastic about the positive experience she had working for
the government. Her company was hired to build "a large solar electric
center" at the Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge in Loleta. The
building's hot water is now heated through solar power. They also built housing
for the Refuge workers. In addition to this project, her company also upgraded
a heating system for another building but the conversation moved on before I
could clarify where exactly this project was located.
Amy
further elaborated that because they were working for the government, they got
to pay their employees more due to the government issuing them a Payment &
Performance bond. She
ended the interview saying she'd love to work for the government
again. Apparently she didn't have the payment problem that the other
construction company had. While these kinds of projects can sometimes yield
poor results or even be fundamentally wrongheaded (Moodle: Week 5: NPR
“Brazilian Tribes Say Dam Threatens Way of Life), almost all of the projects of
the Recovery Act have survived peer review (click around Recovery.gov if you're
skeptical).
When
I asked each of the representatives whether or not they found the money useful,
there was a pause before they responded in the affirmative. I realized I
had asked a stupid question but it was a stupid question that needed to be
asked. It's easy to criticize the stimulus when you're just reading numbers on
a screen but when you're a direct beneficiary of it and you see what the
money is going towards, your perspective is bound to change ( unless you're Paul
Ryan). Economies
like ours typically deal with more abstract concepts (ex: stocks) rather than material
goods (Moodle: Week 4: Economic Anthropology video). It's easy to forget that a
complex "economic stimulus package" put together on the other side of
the country will translate into jobs and services in our own neighborhoods. For
many people, the stimulus package was just $787 billion being added to the
deficit. I'm not saying that people who are against the stimulus or any other
social program for that matter are all stupid or apathetic to other people's
suffering. But I am sure that if more people could see the good that government
can do, they wouldn't be so quick to condemn programs like the Recovery Act.
But I'll save my wrap up for my final post.
Part
IV
Looking
back on this project, I'm realizing that is was largely a confirming experience
rather than a learning one, confirming that government can be force for good in
the lives its citizens. During the course of this little project, I've mentioned
that I've constantly been hearing the nagging voice of my former Libertarian/Social
Darwinian self, whispering always that the government has no business helping
the average worker, that the worker instead has to help him or herself and once
(or if) they recover, they’ll be stronger for it. I recognized a few years ago that this was a
dogmatic and fallacious line of reasoning that was mostly motivated by my own prejudices
rather than by a sense of empathy and understanding for those in need but old
habits die hard. After completing this project however, I’m more convinced than
ever about the baseless and, at times, callous nature of my former outlook. I'm also more firmly convinced about the good that government can do when it works for the people.
I also keep remembering
all the really stupid questions I had to ask to
the participants in this project, the main one being: were jobs that your company received beneficial
to your company? Well, of course they were! They weren't hired to work for
sub-standard wages like the grape pickers in California (Krissman's Week 4, 11
lectures) nor were they subject to any poorly planned, table tilted, environmentally
destructive, or culturally oblivious policies from the World Bank or
International Monetary Fund (RCA p. 73). They were simply receiving money from
their government in exchange for work that needed to be done. This is far from
government simply giving "hand-outs".
So, I
walk away from this project with a very cautious optimism, not in the
government, but in the power of an active citizenry that make government work for the good of everyone rather than the benefit
of a few. This comes from hard work and dedication on the part of the people
(the individualism of my semi-younger self) and on a well-established safety
net on the side of government should the people need help. Maybe one day, we
won’t have to talk about “the government” and “the people” at all. Maybe one
day they’ll totally blend together to point where we can’t tell the difference
any more. If that day comes, then it will represent the true birth of
democracy. May it come soon.