To Create Jobs, Tennessee Looks to New Deal Model

[tk2kewl]

Source: The New York Times

LINDEN, Tenn. — Critics elsewhere may be questioning how many jobs the stimulus program has created, but here in central Tennessee, hundreds of workers are again drawing paychecks after many months out of work, thanks to a novel use of federal stimulus money by Tennessee officials to help one of the state’s hardest-hit areas.

There, on a recent morning, some workers were cutting down pine trees with chainsaws and clearing undergrowth, just past the auto parts factory that laid them off last year when it moved to Mexico. Others were taking applications for unemployment benefits at the very center where they themselves had applied not long ago. A few were making turnovers at the Armstrong Pie Company (“The South’s Finest Since 1946”).

The state decided to spend some of its money to try to reduce unemployment by up to 40 percent here in Perry County, a small, rural county 90 miles southwest of Nashville where the unemployment rate had risen to above 25 percent after its biggest plant, the auto parts factory, closed.

Rather than waiting for big projects to be planned and awarded to construction companies, or for tax cuts to trickle through the economy, state officials hit upon a New Deal model of trying to put people directly to work as quickly as possible.




Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/28/us/28county.html?hp

[TNDemo]

1. This couldn't have been written by a tennessean.

It's never central TN - it's middle TN. But glad about the jobs.

[sutz12]

2. Well, it is the NYTimes....

Good to see my tax dollars going to good use. :)

:thumbsup:

[tomreedtoon]

3. This should be reported nationally.

And also with the mention that with the first Great Depression, the New Deal helped raise Tennessee out of poverty and ignorance more than any other action of the 20th Century. The Tennessee Valley Authority gave them electrical power that they could have never installed themselves.

If all the bailouts were spent so well and so visibly, there would be much less Republican flack.

[Amos Moses]

5. Yeah we never seen none of them fancy electric lights before

the TVA installed 'em for us.

[alfredo]

11. When I joined the Army in 65, there were a couple of soldiers in basic

that lived in homes with no electricity and running water. One had never met a black person before. It scared the shit out of him. the other one was a racist asshole that never brushed his teeth, didn't bathe, and ended up getting a blanket party and a night in the hospital. The drill sgt looked the other way.

[TNDemo]

14. Can't we just celebrate some good news?

Without making it about racism, which has nothing to do with this thread?

[alfredo]

16. Actually, it was good news because black and white came together against him.

[Amos Moses]

19. No, we have to hear someone from Kentucky, of all places

tell us what a bunch of racist country bumpkins we are.

[Amos Moses]

15. You mean the Army used to let poor people in?

OMFG! :wow: They don't do that now, do they?

[alfredo]

17. The draft targeted the poor.

[Amos Moses]

18. guess I should have used

:sarcasm:

[alfredo]

20. Actually some Tarragon would have been nice too.

[Amos Moses]

24. Oh, is that what the refined gentlemen from Kentucky use?

Unfortunately, I'm not from the cultural and technological center of the universe known as Kentucky. We're just not as advanced, yet, but we are constantly striving to rise to the level of our superiors to the north.:eyes:

[alfredo]

27. I learned that word while working at the garden center of Walmart.

[tomreedtoon]

21. Lots of Tennessee people didn't, in 1932.

You're used to it now, but your grandparents stared in wonder as they got electric lights and radios. You should know your history - especially the history that the Federal Government can make a positive difference in people's lives. If we're really lucky and Obama isn't assassinated, it could happen again.

[Amos Moses]

23. What is this about assassinating Obama?

Not only are you rude and condescending, you're also very strange. :crazy:

[tomreedtoon]

25. I am none of the above. I speak the truth. You just can't stand it.

From Wikipedia, since you apparently don't know the history of your own state:

The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned corporation in the United States created by congressional charter in May 1933 to provide navigation, flood control, electricity generation, fertilizer manufacturing, and economic development in the Tennessee Valley, a region particularly impacted by the Great Depression.

Okay, follow along now. That means that before 1933 there were very few places in Tennessee, in fact in the rural South, that had electricity, flood control, or economic development. You'll have to go look up the history in a library; I can't do everything for you.

And I have to be rude and condescending, since there are so many people who wear their ignorance on their sleeves. There are so many Robitussin-heads here that you have to slap them across the face with a metal-studded glove before they pay attention.

The "assasinate Obama" part? What do you think the Birthers are about? What do you think Limbaugh and O'Reilly are rousing out there in the hinterlands? For God's sake, there are Vietnam veterans out there who still want to kill Jane Fonda. And those guys have lots of guns. How insensitive, uneducated and blase ARE you guys?

[Amos Moses]

30. Your Words:

"The TVA gave them electrical power that they never could have installed themselves".

If they didn't have electrical power until 1933, what were those electric streetcars running on in 1910?

1882 - Nashville's first electric light goes on display outside the State Capitol.

1890 - Cumberland Electric Light begins producing electricity at a tiny coal-powered plant on First Avenue North.

1910 - Electric streetcars, owned by Nashville Railway & Light Co., are the transportation of choice in Nashville.

1922 - Nashville's street car company merges into a new entity called the Tennessee Electric Power Co. (TEPCO).

Don't believe me? Click on this link and read it your goddamn self then, you stupid fucking cultist.

http://www.nespower.com/nes_history.aspx

[tomreedtoon]

31. Nashville is not ALL of Tennessee, wiseguy.

Most of Tennessee is still Dogpatch. I've driven I-95 many times. Fifty feet from the Interstate, it's all The Hills Have Eyes. The only meat to barbecue is the tourists they waylay and kill. Maybe you only live in big cities, but even I know there's more to the state than Nashville.

My father once tried to start a shoe factory in the bootheel area of Missouri, back when companies were willing to still employ workers in the US. He had trouble finding adult males who could read. And Missouri is a comparatively civilized state compared to the deep South.

So put that into your smoker and see if it turns out flavorful.

[Amos Moses]

32. All you need to know

is what you can see from the interstate. No wonder you're so fucking ignorant. Stupid cultist.

[SharonAnn]

22. Well, it didn't lift many in East TN out of ignorance. Poverty, maybe.

And, since the TVA and Oak Ridge took many family's farms, they're not considered totally positive.

[Uncle Joe]

4. Kicked and recommended in spite of the "Central" Tennessee reference..

Kudos to Governor Bredesen for his judicious use of funds.

Thanks for the thread, tk2kewl.

[Amos Moses]

6. If GM doesn't decide to build something at the former Saturn

plant in Maury County, things will be very bleak for many Mid TN communities, regardless of how the economy is doing.

[tomreedtoon]

26. Point taken. How do you MAKE GM do that?

The way people are talking, it doesn't sound like the US Government's involvement in GM means much hands-on control of the company. Unless there is a strong mandate to do something like this (a very intelligent idea, by the way) it will never happen.

[blue_onyx]

28. Can't make GM do it

Obama says he doesn't want to run an auto company so I don't think the government will have much of an effect on GM. I think it's for the best that the government stay out of it since they can't make up their mind on what GM should do anyway. One minute, they're telling GM to be competitive with foriegn companies. When GM starts to take the steps to be more competitive, the House votes to force them to take back dealers.

[EC]

7. Is this a Republican or Democratic Govenor?

The Republicans said that the New Deal didn't work, so is this a Dem Gov?

[Amos Moses]

8. Democrat

[Froward69]

9. of course

Fred Thompson will hail people going back to work... but will stroke out if he would have to admit FDR or President Obama thought it up.

[southernyankeebelle]

10. I live in TN - I hope the people here realize that it has been the

stimulus package thanks to Obama and our democrat Governor. To bad our governor can't run again.

[alfredo]

12. My wife lived in Nashville for about ten years. She loved it, but didn't like

the tension between the races.

[Odin2005]

13. Wow! Go Tennessee!!!

[redqueen]

29. FDR's legacy ... helping ungrateful conservatives (and everyone else) for 75 years.