David Woolner

Roosevelt Institute Senior Fellow
Roosevelt Institute Profile

Recent Posts by David Woolner

  • Loss of High-speed Rail Funding is a Loss for America

    Apr 25, 2011David Woolner

    We're on the wrong track of forgetting our history of putting people to work building the infrastructure we need.

    In the recent battle between the White House and Congress over the 2011 budget, one of the major casualties was high-speed rail. This is another sad indication of the lack of vision emanating from Washington. Not only will this cost thousands of good paying and highly skilled jobs, it also represents another step back in the need for the United States to cut greenhouse gas emissions and reduce our energy consumption.

    We're on the wrong track of forgetting our history of putting people to work building the infrastructure we need.

    In the recent battle between the White House and Congress over the 2011 budget, one of the major casualties was high-speed rail. This is another sad indication of the lack of vision emanating from Washington. Not only will this cost thousands of good paying and highly skilled jobs, it also represents another step back in the need for the United States to cut greenhouse gas emissions and reduce our energy consumption.

    High-speed rail has also been in the news of late because of Florida Governor Rick Scott's decision to turn down funds that were already appropriated to build the first line between Tampa and Orlando. Taking his cue from the deficit hawks and proponents of limited government, Governor Scot claimed the plan would be too costly for Florida's state government -- a claim that has been disputed by a number of economists -- and rejected the federal dollars, in spite of the strong support from a significant portion of Florida's business community. Similar rejections of federal dollars for rail projects have come from the newly elected republican Governors of Wisconsin and Ohio, who together have turned away over $1.2 billion in federals funding for improvements in the nation's rail system, including a high-speed line between Madison and Milwaukee.

    All three governors have cited economic reasons for their refusal to accept these funds, but as Stephen Harrod, Assistant Professor of Operations Management at Dayton University notes, the real reasons more likely stem from a deep-seated ideological and cultural bias against the very idea of high-speed rail among the American right. In a recent article on the subject, Professor Harrod observes that much of the conservative opposition to high-speed rail can be linked to the widespread and erroneous notion that the construction of such a system would lead the United States into "European socialism." As such, one of the rallying cries of Tea Party advocates is "Stop the Train." These same individuals are uncomfortable with the urban nature of rail travel, and because the establishment of a rail system requires a good deal of centralized planning it must, by its very nature, be "socialistic."

    These arguments ignore the fact that the vast majority of European rail companies operate on a commercial basis. They also ignore the enormous contribution the federal government has made and continues to make in the construction of our nation's highways, best exemplified by the creation of the Interstate Highway System under President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Not to mention federal support for the nation's air travel and the all important but long forgotten federal subsidies for the construction of the much celebrated transcontinental railroad in the nineteenth century.

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    In light of this, Professor Harrod says the tax-saving arguments used by Governor Scott and others ring hollow, as each of these governors is perfectly happy to accept federal dollars in support of their state's highway system. Hence, they are not opposed to government funding of transportation, they are opposed to government funding of rail transportation.

    The popular view, of course, is that our nation's highways, including the vast network of rural roads, are paid for by fuel taxes equally shared by all. But as Professor Harrod points out, the vast majority of revenue collected from fuel taxes comes from the urban population, which means that most rural roads in America, which are often built as a spur to local economic development, are in effect subsidized by the federal government.

    In FDR's day, similar arguments were used to try to bring an end to such programs as the Works Progress Administration (WPA), which used federal funds issued to localities to employ millions of Americans in a massive effort to build the nation's economic infrastructure. Critics charged that the WPA was simply engaged in a massive "make work" effort and many conservatives regarded it as major step towards socialism. This perception -- though wildly inaccurate -- remains with us to this day. The goal of the WPA was to get people off relief and into productive employment, not only to provide them with the income needed to help support their families, but also to maintain the skills of the nation's workforce and invest in the future expansion of the economy. As such, each project was carefully screened to ensure all facets of the labor needed to complete the work, from the design and engineering work down to the actual construction, came from the ranks of the unemployed. Moreover, many of the improvements made by the WPA -- including over 570,000 miles of rural roads, roughly 100,000 bridges, tens of thousands of schools, and hundreds of airports -- are with us still.

    Thanks to this deep-seated bias against the culture of rail travel and the centralized planning required for the construction of an efficient high-speed rail system, the United States has once again fallen behind our European and Asian counterparts. Worse still, we risk losing the opportunity to employ the thousands of engineers, architects, machinists and other highly skilled workers required to build such a system. Most Americans still operate under the erroneous assumption that such federal programs as the New Deal's WPA or Interstate Highway System only involved the employment of low skilled and poorly paid labor. In doing so, we have turned away from our own legacy and have chosen to forget that the construction of our nation's economic infrastructure did not just happen by accident. It took planning, vision, a highly skilled work force, and a good deal of federal support.

    David Woolner is a Senior Fellow and Hyde Park Resident Historian for the Roosevelt Institute.

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  • On Anniversary of FDR's Death, Remembering Leadership that Faced Down Economic Tyranny

    Apr 12, 2011David Woolner

    On this day one of the most visionary presidents in US history passed away while in office. Roosevelt historian David Woolner honors his legacy, and the legacy of the millions of Americans who grieved at his passing.

    On this day one of the most visionary presidents in US history passed away while in office. Roosevelt historian David Woolner honors his legacy, and the legacy of the millions of Americans who grieved at his passing.

    In his inaugural address on the 4th of March, 1933, Franklin Roosevelt -- who passed away 66 years ago today -- chastised the forces of wealth and power who, through their greed and avarice, led the United States into the greatest economic crisis of our history, the Great Depression. "Stripped of the lure of profit by which to induce our people to follow their false leadership," he said, "they have resorted to exhortations, pleading tearfully for restored confidence. They only know the rules of a generation of self-seekers. They have no vision, and when there is no vision the people perish."

    Over the next twelve years FDR would articulate a vision for America that was based on the notion that every American deserved not just political rights, but the right to a measure of social and economic security. It was a theme that he returned to again and again, a theme that led to the banking and financial reforms that gave us the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission and which gave us such landmark pieces of legislation as the Social Security Act, the National Labor Relations Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act.

    The onset of the Second World War and a conservative backlash against the New Deal in the late 1930s limited FDR's ability to push through further reform legislation during the course of his unprecedented third and forth terms. But his belief in the link between political and economic freedom intensified, and it was during the war that his articulation of his vision for America and the world reached its greatest height. It was in January 1941, for example, that FDR expressed his view that the great sacrifices the democracies were making in their struggle against fascism were necessary so that humanity could one day establish a world based on "four fundamental human freedoms": freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear. FDR reiterated much of this when he joined Winston Churchill in drafting the Atlantic Charter later that year. He backed up his call for a greater measure of global economic security through his support for the creation of such post-war institutions as the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (which later became the World Bank).

    Indeed, near the end of his life, the experiences of depression and war had convinced FDR that "true individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence" as "necessitous men are not free men," but the stuff with which "dictatorships are made." Moreover, FDR became convinced that in a complex, modern industrial economy, providing such basic economic security is much more than a mere aspiration. It is a necessity, a right, which can and must be protected. Having reached the conclusion that in our own day "these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident," the President went on to make one of the most important -- and least known -- speeches of his career when he called for the establishment of "a Second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all [Americans] -- regardless of station, race, or creed."

    With tremendous prescience, President Roosevelt then listed what he considered to be these essential rights, among which were included: the right to a useful and remunerative job; the right to earn enough to provide adequate food, clothing, and recreation; the right of every businessman to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies; the right to a decent home, adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health; the right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident and unemployment; and the right to a good education.

    As Cass Sunstein has observed in his book "The Second Bill of Rights: FDR's Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need it More than Ever", the Second Bill of Rights sought to protect both opportunity and security and to complete the unfulfilled promise of the American revolution, by making sure -- in an era of fascism -- that every American could enjoy the benefits of liberal, capitalist democracy. At the base of FDR's vision stood his faith in government as an active instrument of social and economic justice; government that was dedicated not to special interests, but to the common good.

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    In a world dominated by free-market fundamentalists, the notion of government as an instrument of economic revival and social improvement has almost disappeared from the public consciousness. Yet the problems that FDR sought to address remain with us still -- and in recent years have gotten worse. Today, for example, roughly twenty percent of American children live in poverty, the highest rate among any industrialized nation. We still have approximately 13.5 million people officially unemployed and the unofficial rate is estimated to be much higher. With the new health care reform bill there is some hope that the millions of Americans without health insurance will be covered in the future, but given the current political and legal challenges, this is by no means certain. In the meantime, the costs associated with a higher education continue to climb, as does student debt, which for the first time in American history topped a trillion dollars and now exceeds nation-wide credit card debt.

    In Roosevelt's day, GIs returning from fighting overseas could look forward to going to college on the GI Bill (often referred to as "the GI Bill of Rights"), which also provided an array of housing, medical and other benefits. Thanks to the foresightedness of this legislation -- which was the first tangible consequence of FDR's Second Bill of Rights speech -- millions of young men attended college for the first time. In doing so, they not only improved their own lives, they also changed the face of America and drastically improved the productivity of the post-war workforce. All this thanks to a government program designed and dedicated to making higher education affordable for millions of middle and lower-income Americans.

    Engaging in serious structural reform and fashioning programs that provide both security and economic opportunity for millions of Americans takes money, vision and leadership. As we struggle past one budget crisis and stumble our way toward the next, it appears that we lack all three of these key ingredients -- and millions continue to suffer because of it. Worse still, a new generation of "self seekers" has once again lured the American public to follow their false leadership, buying into the specious notion that the Great Recession was caused not by reckless bankers and hedge fund managers but by too much government spending. They claim that cutting government expenditures in an economic downturn will lead to more jobs and that the best way to ensure the long-term health of the economy is to shrink government, strip unions of their collective bargaining rights and make the tax cuts on the rich permanent.

    Over six decades ago, in the face of a far greater economic crisis, FDR rose the occasion by convincing millions of Americans to follow his vision and to support the transformation of American society through the establishment of the New Deal. Looking back on the causes of the Great Depression, which are remarkably similar to those that cause our current economic crisis, FDR once observed that for too many Americans,

    ...the political equality we once had won was meaningless in the face of economic inequality. A small group had concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over other people's property, other people's money, other people's labor -- other people's lives. For too many of us life was no longer free; liberty no longer real; men could no longer follow the pursuit of happiness.

    Against economic tyranny such as this, the American citizen could appeal only to the organized power of government. The collapse of 1929 showed up the despotism for what it was. The election of 1932 was the people's mandate to end it.

    If we are going to reclaim our mandate to end economic domination by the rich and put our nation back on the path to equality, we are going to need much more than endless calls for tax cuts and an end to government intervention in the economy. We are going to need leaders strong enough to take on the forces of wealth and greed; leaders who will not merely trumpet their ability to cut government spending in a recession, but instead defend the right of government to act directly and decisively to put people to work; leaders dedicated to bringing an end to the increasingly unequal distribution of wealth that has robbed Americans of the purchasing power they need to restore the health of the economy and achieve the same standard of living as their parents. In short, we are going to need leaders with vision, for as FDR said all those years ago, "when there is no vision, the people perish."

    David Woolner is a Senior Fellow and Hyde Park Resident Historian for the Roosevelt Institute.

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  • Time for a New Manhattan Project?

    Apr 1, 2011David Woolner

    To solve our energy problem, President Obama must bring together the country's best and brightest and devote significant government resources.

    To solve our energy problem, President Obama must bring together the country's best and brightest and devote significant government resources.

    In a speech before students at George Washington University this week, President Obama insisted that it was time for the United States to develop a new national energy policy that would reduce our nation's dependence on oil. "We've known about the dangers of our oil dependence for decades," he said, with presidents and politicians having promised time and time again to secure America's "energy dependence." But so far, "that promise has gone unmet."

    He then went on to say that we "cannot keep going from shock to trance on the issue of energy security, rushing to propose action when gas prices rise, then hitting the snooze button when they fall again." To solve our energy challenge, the president then announced that his administration was releasing a "Blueprint for a Secure Energy Future," which provides the framework for a comprehensive national energy policy. The new framework includes a number of ideas and programs, from setting a goal to cut our dependence on foreign oil by one third over the next decade, to ensuring America's homes and offices are more energy efficient. The plan also calls for an enhanced effort to secure domestic supplies of energy -- including oil, natural gas, clean coal and nuclear power -- as well as the development of alternative sources of energy, such as wind, solar power and biofuels. In the long run, however, the president insisted that the best way for the United States to secure its energy future would be for the country to tap into its most valuable commodity: American ingenuity.

    The notion that the United States can use its scientific, intellectual and entrepreneurial power to solve its most complex and pressing problems is not a new one. But to a large extent, President Obama's call for the research and development of new sources of energy relies on the encouragement of the private sector to do so through the establishment of a Clean Energy Standard. He does observe that government funding in R&D will be critical to this effort and notes with pride the investments his administration has already made in renewable energy research under funds provided by the 2009 stimulus act. But his calls for additional federal support of this effort -- characterized as one of his "budget priorities" in an age of fiscal austerity -- may lack the dynamism and inspiration needed to get the American people behind it.

    It is true that the Americans are remarkably ingenious. But it is also true that some of our most important technical and scientific advancements have come about not through the profit-seeking initiative of the private sector, but rather through the marshaling of intellectual, scientific and financial resources under the direction of the federal government. One example is the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), established by Congress in 1958 under the leadership of President Dwight David Eisenhower. A second, and far more significant example, can be found in the launch of FDR's Manhattan Project -- the wartime effort to develop the atomic bomb.

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    The Manhattan Project was inspired to a large extent by a letter that President Roosevelt received in the fall of 1939 from Albert Einstein and a small group of international scientists. The letter took note of the recent discovery of nuclear fission and warned the president of the possibility that this discovery might lead to the creation of extremely powerful weapons. It also alluded to the fact that German scientists were working in this area.

    In response to this news, FDR immediately established an Advisory Committee on Uranium, while a similar effort was launched in Great Britain. By 1942, the two efforts had merged into what was called the Manhattan Project. Centered in the United States, it involved scientists working at labs in a number of leading universities in the U.S., Britain and Canada. It also led to the creation of a number of significant federal facilities, such as the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Oak Ridge City, which grew from empty Tennessee farmland to a city and scientific facility of over 75,000 people between 1943 and 1945; the Hanford Engineering Works, located in south-central Washington, which employed over 50,000 workers in the construction of the world's first full-scale nuclear reactor; and the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which employed over 5,000 scientists and engineers.

    Employing more than 130,000 people at a cost of roughly $2 billion in 1940s dollars, the Manhattan Project was one of the largest scientific endeavors ever undertaken. Its successful development of atomic weapons and the US decision to use them will forever remain controversial, but the project also ushered in the nuclear age, which brought us a host of scientific advances above and beyond the development of nuclear energy. These include significant developments in medicine, electronics and nanotechnology, all of which have had an enormous impact on our quality of life and our understandings of the workings of the universe.

    Establishing a Clean Energy Standard that will require the private sector to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and our dependence on foreign oil is an important first step in our effort to secure what the president calls our "energy independence." But if we wish to use our innate ingenuity to truly wean ourselves off our dependence on fossil fuels and the internal combustion engine, then something more than marginal support for basic scientific and technical research will be required. President Obama alluded to this when he said we need "to dream big;" to summon the same spirit of unbridled optimism and bold willingness that allowed "previous generations to rise to greatness -- to save democracy, to touch the moon, to connect the world with our own science and imagination."

    As we look to the past for inspiration, it is important to remember that many of the accomplishments the president refers to would not have been achieved without the strong financial support of the federal government. To "dream big" means trying to achieve not the greatest profit, but the greatest good for all Americans. This requires much more than faith in science; it also requires faith in our collective wisdom and the benefits that can accrue from a government that is truly dedicated to the common good of all.

    David Woolner is a Senior Fellow and Hyde Park Resident Historian for the Roosevelt Institute.

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  • Obama's Delay in the Libya Intervention Took a Page from FDR

    Mar 22, 2011David Woolner

    Obama's insistence on international support may be his most Rooseveltian action yet.

    As the crisis in Libya has unfolded, a number of commentators have criticized the Obama administration for the time it took to act. It has also been reprimanded for not taking the lead among the international community and for insisting, as the crisis intensified, that it would not act without the sanction of the United Nations Security Council.

    Obama's insistence on international support may be his most Rooseveltian action yet.

    As the crisis in Libya has unfolded, a number of commentators have criticized the Obama administration for the time it took to act. It has also been reprimanded for not taking the lead among the international community and for insisting, as the crisis intensified, that it would not act without the sanction of the United Nations Security Council.

    Given the harrowing scenes broadcast from cities such as Zawiya, some of this frustration is understandable. But the process by which the administration arrived at the decision to intervene is significant, for it marks perhaps the strongest indication to date that President Obama wishes to return the United States to a more Rooseveltian foreign policy.

    As an admirer of both Woodrow Wilson (for whom FDR served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy) and Theodore Roosevelt, FDR entered the White House with a unique perspective on global affairs. While he appreciated and maintained a deep respect for Wilson's idealistic calls for collective security and multilateral cooperation, he also understood -- from his distant cousin TR -- the important role and responsibility that the world's leading powers had for maintaining the peace.

    Frustrated by America's neutrality laws and by the fact that the United States was not a member of the League of Nations during the inter-war years, there was little FDR could do in the 1930s except watch with alarm as the League failed to keep the peace in Asia, Europe and Africa. But this experience also proved significant, for once the United States entered the Second World War FDR became determined to establish a new world organization that would in effect combine the idealism of Wilson with the hard-hitting realism of TR.

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    FDR did so by organizing the new international body around a concept he called the "four" -- later five -- "policemen." Originally made up of Great Britain, the United States, China and the U.S.S.R. (with France added near the end of the war), FDR sought to counter the ineffectiveness of the League by creating a stronger executive body. It was made up of these five powers plus a small number of other states, and would have the power -- and the means -- to act to keep the peace. His thinking along these lines can be traced as far back as January 1, 1942 when, in the wake of Pearl Harbor, some 26 governments signed a document called the "Declaration of United Nations" in Washington, D.C. Pledging to adhere to the Atlantic Charter and to the conviction that "complete victory" over their enemies was "essential" in the defense of "life, liberty, independence and religious freedom," the list of signatory states was led by the United States, Britain, the U.S.S.R. and China, followed by the other 22 nations in alphabetical order. Hence FDR's wartime alliance, commonly referred to as the "United Nations," granted pride of place to the four powers he felt were essential to the maintenance of world peace.

    On matters involving the social and economic well-being of the world community, FDR assumed that a more broadly based deliberative body composed of all member states would hold sway. In essence, then, FDR separated matters of security from other non-security issues, arguing that a small executive body that could act quickly (and was supported by armed forces provided by the member states) must be placed at the head of any new "United Nations Organization" to insure that the policing function of the organization was efficient and effective.

    Today's United Nations -- with a Security Council made up of five permanent and ten rotating members, and a General Assembly made up of all member states -- reflects this vision. So too do the many other multilateral institutions -- the IMF, World Bank, NATO and WTO -- that were created during and after the war. It is important to remember that these institutions were largely created under American direction in the firm belief that they would advance American -- and world -- interests. As such, President Obama's decision to adopt a multilateral approach to the crisis in Libya and to pursue a Security Council resolution in support of military action does not represent a diminution of American sovereignty or an abandonment of American leadership. What it does represent is a move away from the unilateralism that characterized America's foreign policy in the previous administration (and in the 1930s) and an embrace of the more traditional post-war multilateral expression of American power perhaps best exemplified by George HW Bush in the first Gulf War and by Harry S. Truman at the onset of the Korean War. In both cases, each president placed a great deal of emphasis on the need to obtain a Security Council Resolution and in building a coalition of powers -- which in Bush 41's case included Egypt, Syria, Morocco, Qatar, Oman, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, among others -- before committing US forces to combat.

    All this is not to say that there are not times when the United States can and must act militarily on its own authority. But the conditions and regional sensitivity surrounding the crisis in Libya make it imperative that we act in concert with other states in the region and with the endorsement of the international community as sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council. Doing so can be frustrating, but in the long-run we will be far better off having taken the time to gain the support of the world community in our efforts to help the people of Libya free themselves from the oppressive grip of one of the world's most brutal dictators.

    David Woolner is a Senior Fellow and Hyde Park Resident Historian for the Roosevelt Institute.

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  • Rolling Back the Clock in Wisconsin: Governor Walker’s Assault on the New Deal

    Mar 1, 2011David Woolner

    Unions helped boost productivity and wages during FDR's time -- shouldn't we learn that lesson?

    Unions helped boost productivity and wages during FDR's time -- shouldn't we learn that lesson?

    Late last week, President Obama accused Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker of unleashing "an assault on unions" in his drive to push through legislation that would strip away many of the collective bargaining rights currently held by public sector workers in that state. The President also said that while everyone will need to make some "adjustments" in the current fiscal climate, we should not forget the "enormous contributions" public employees make to our states and to our citizens.

    The President is certainly correct when he says that the move by Governor Walker is an assault on the unions. But his hint that wage and benefit concessions (adjustments) might be necessary unfortunately plays into the hands of the deficit hawks who keep insisting that the only way for us to climb out of the Great Recession is through massive cuts to state and federal budgets.

    As Robert Reich recently observed, nothing could be further from the truth. The real cause of these budget deficits is not excessive spending, but a dramatic fall in tax revenue perpetuated in part by the recession and in part by "tax giveaways to the rich."

    Indeed, in our forty-year drive to provide a greater and greater share of our national income to those who need it the least -- the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans -- we have managed to expand their take of total national income from 9 percent to 20 percent. With more and more of the nation's wealth flowing to a smaller percentage of the population -- whose contributions to the national well-being has declined precipitously thanks to cuts in income, estate and other forms of taxation -- is it any wonder that the middle class has been severely hurt by this recession or that governments, thanks to declining wages and the loss of jobs among working Americans, are struggling to meet their obligations?

    Under similar circumstances nearly 80 years ago, Franklin Roosevelt's response to the nation's worst economic crisis was not to strip away labor's right to bargain collectively or to slash government to the bone, but rather to use government and the legislative process to strengthen the ability of working Americans to secure fair wages and working conditions. As such, a key element of the New Deal was the passage of labor laws like the National Labor Relations Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act, two monumental pieces of legislation that set up a permanent National Labor Relations Board, granted private sector workers the right to form unions and to bargain collectively, established a national minimum wage, and guaranteed "time and a half" for overtime in certain jobs. In this vastly improved climate, union membership increased dramatically, from less than 3 million in 1933 to more than 14 million in 1945. So too did wages. By 1937, in fact, real weekly earnings were 30 percent higher than they had been when FDR first took office and fifteen percent higher than they were in 1929.

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    Meanwhile, for those who had lost their jobs or were suffering in poverty in their old age, the Roosevelt Administration provided work building the nation's economic infrastructure through such federal programs as the Works Progress Administration (WPA). It also provided a measure of economic security through the passage of the Social Security Act with unemployment insurance and old age pensions. All of this required considerable spending on the part of government, spending that, much like today, ran into substantial opposition from fiscal conservatives and organizations like the American Liberty League, which accused the Roosevelt Administration of taking the country down the path of socialism. Hemmed in by this political opposition, and lacking experience in the new field of Keynesian economics, the Roosevelt Administration was not able to unleash the level of federal stimulus -- deficit spending -- that was needed to restore the economy until the security demands of World War II rendered the arguments of the deficit hawks irrelevant.

    Led by a government committed to working with both management and labor to make the United States the most powerful nation on the planet, US wartime production exceeded all expectations and dwarfed our allies and enemies alike. Moreover, in the pro-labor climate of the time, union membership expanded at an ever more rapid pace. By 1945, it had reached a record 35 percent of the non-agricultural workforce, while over the same period wages increased by a healthy 65 percent.

    Thanks to the willingness of the federal government to invest in the wartime economy (which included federal expenditures that reached a high point of 46.5 percent of total GDP in 1943), and to the wartime collaboration between the federal government, private enterprise and organized labor, the United States emerged from the war not only as the richest and most powerful nation on earth, but also the country poised to dominate the world's economy for generations to come. And all of this with a highly paid and highly unionized work force.

    It is true that the labor legislation of the 1930s did not apply to public service employees, but it seems highly unlikely that once achieved FDR would support any effort, like the one currently underway in Wisconsin, to take away these rights. Indeed, when Franklin Roosevelt took office in midst of the despair of the Great Depression, he promised to "wage war" against the economic crisis. He also once remarked that "if ever I went to work in a factory, the first thing I'd do is join a union." Under his leadership, working Americans were not stripped of their rights, but were encouraged to organize for better wages, hours and working conditions. In doing so, they not only helped lift themselves out of the Great Depression, they also helped lift the nation out as a whole. Rather than follow the false promise of economic growth through ever more tax decreases for the rich, isn't it time we tried the opposite tack? Shouldn't we consider raising taxes on the wealthy and looking to expand the economy -- and state and federal revenue -- through increased wages and benefits for the millions of working Americans in Wisconsin and elsewhere who make up the backbone of this country?

    David Woolner is a Senior Fellow and Hyde Park Resident Historian for the Roosevelt Institute.

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