Over the weekend I went hiking at Virginia Kendall. When I came upon Kendall Lake it stunned me to see it empty - then I remembered reading in the paper that they were going to dredge the lake and fix the dam(which was over-topped in the 2003 flood).
The lake, shelters, and trails at Kendall were built by the
Civilian Conservation Corps in the late 30's - a New Deal program now subject to conservative revisionism history (the idea that the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression instead of helping cure it). It seems to me that the arguments used to try to discredit FDR's programs are the same as the ones used to try to discredit Obama and the recently passed stimulus bill. During the Great Depression the CCC took unemployed men and put them to work for the public good - with the current tanking of new construction much of todays's stimulus dollars will be having a similar effect -more work. Putting people to work puts money in people's pockets - putting money in people's leads to consumer spending and consumer spending is what is needed to jump start the stalled economy.
This is what I was thinking about watching the crew work on the lake...I would like to note though that this project had been planned pre-stimulus. The Cuyahoga Valley National Park, which Virginia Kendall is part of, did receive federal stimulus money for other projects.
