This is not nearly FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps or Resettlement Administration
This morning, my email in box was polluted by this propaganda:
First of all, it was an EPA Press Release, which only serves to further politicize EPA and undermine public trust in the Agency. Bad idea.
Secondly, I can only assume that it is part of a coordinated Democratic mid-term electoral political campaign – in the wake of Biden’s “Inflation Reduction Act” (IRA) “victory” – to assume the mantle of Democratic support for rural America. (the “outdoor recreation” rural “bait and bullet” crowd is solidly Trump Republican, so this couldn’t possibly be a political appeal to them).
This is a very cynical ploy.
But a little known and under-reported fact is that the IRA did include significant new resources and investments in agriculture that will benefit rural America.
But those subsidies are a very far cry from anything remotely like FDR’s New Deal rural and agricultural programs under the New Deal agencies such as the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and the Resettlement Administration.
In a painful irony, some of the Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) programs Biden announced in that press release are exactly the programs I recommended that Biden should have used to leverage Senator Manchin BEFORE he killed climate programs in Biden’s watered down version of the Green New Deal he dubbed “Build Back Better”.
The Biden IRA is not remotely equivalent to Bernie Sanders’ Green New Deal, particularly in terms of beneficial rural and agricultural policies.
As such, Biden and the Democrats are gaslighting liberals and progressives who originally supported the Green New Deal (and are “outdoor recreational” people who go “rural” (fly over country) in a similar fashion that they used to describe “slumming”).
So, I’m calling bullshit on all that.
