Blue Dogs and Citigroup Fight the Employee Free Choice Act

Even the “Blue Dog” Democrats should be alarmed about bailed out banks taking billions in taxpayer funds only to lobby against this era’s Wagner Act.

I don’t think so.

Labor gaining ground was essential to putting the economy back together after the Great Depression and it is essential today. The activists working in favor of the Employee Free Choice Act are to President Barack Obama what the civil rights movement was to John F. Kennedy, or the C.I.O. was to Franklin Roosevelt. It’s time to level the playing field no matter what the cretins say.

Come On, Blue Dogs! Get real. We’re building the foundation for the global Green Industrial Revolution and any company that wins federal contracts must be unionized, hence, the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). The National Labor Relations Act was a pillar of the New Deal. The Employee Free Choice Act makes economic sense because it will put upward pressure on wages that could increase consumption.

Indiana Senator Evan Bayh and his like-minded spendthrift colleagues should not stand with Mitch McConnell and the Republicans against Keynesian solutions to the current crisis. These times do not call for Hooverite budget tightening. Remember, it was a similar “belt tightening” on the part of FDR that led to the recession of 1937 after years of success.

We should also remember that the last time the world experienced such a dramatic economic collapse was the 1929-1932 period. The hardships in some industrial societies led to some pretty crazy political forms and movements. And it was not until World War II, with its massive spending and “creative destruction,” the world really lifted itself from economic stagnation.

I don’t want another world war to stimulate the economy. We’ve had enough of the military Keynesianism, it’s time for some civilian Keynesianism.

by Joseph Palermo

Joseph Palermo is Associate Professor of American History at CSU, Sacramento. He’s the author of two books on Robert F. Kennedy: In His Own Right (2001) and RFK (2008).

Originally published by The Huffington Post. Reprinted with permission from the author.