TUCSON – Sidewalks in a neighborhood near the University of Arizona in Tucson are stamped with the letters "WPA," which were the initials for the Works Progress Administration.  Similarly, Forest Service facilities, bridges, trails, and flood-control structures outside of town are marked with the letters "CCC," which were the initials for the Civilian Conservation Corps.

 The WPA, CCC and similar agencies were established by President Franklin Roosevelt to get the unemployed back to work during the Great Depression.  There are scores of examples across the country of what was built by mostly unskilled men.  The infrastructure was constructed so well that much of it is still in good condition over 80 years later.

There is general agreement among economists that most of FDR's regulations, agencies and price controls protracted the Great Depression.  But at least putting the unemployed to work building infrastructure was better than leaving them to ride the rails and live in hobo camps.  And a case can be made that it was better than giving them federal money with no expectation of work in return, as is the case today with the coronavirus recession (and with welfare in general).  

Would it be possible to have WPA- or CCC-like programs today?  Probably not.

Of course, today's economic crash is different from the Great Depression, in that present quarantines and social-distancing mandates wouldn't permit the unemployed to live in work camps and work shoulder to shoulder, as they did in the WPA and CCC.  But there are plenty of jobs that unemployed Americans could do today without coming into close contact with others.

Millions could be employed, for example, in cleaning up trash and litter from blighted neighborhoods, from highways, from city parks, and from recreational areas in the countryside.  (As someone who does this daily, I know that by taking certain precautions it can be done at no risk of contracting the virus.)  Alternatively, the unemployed could clean up dead brush in the forests of California and elsewhere to reduce the chance of wildfires.  Or they could process government paperwork from their homes.

Still, it is highly unlikely that a Depression-era work program could work today, even if the current economic crash and corresponding unemployment were not caused by a communicable virus.

One hurdle would be the staggering amount of red tape that has infiltrated every nook and cranny of the American economy, where it strangles innovation, responsiveness, effectiveness and efficiency.  There is so much red tape now that it would probably take five years after the establishment of a new WPA to begin pouring cement sidewalks in Tucson.

If you think that's hyperbole, then consider that the U.S. ranks 55th in World Bank rankings for ease of starting a business, according to a recent article in City Journal.  This puts it behind Albania and just ahead of Niger.

Or consider the Kinzua Bridge, a railroad trestle that was built in 1882 in just 94 days near my wife's hometown of Bradford in northwest Penn., to be used by trains carrying coal from the coal mines to the south.  Almost a half-mile long and 300 feet high, it was the tallest railroad bridge in the world at the time.  Originally built out of wrought iron, it was torn down a couple of years later and rebuilt out of steel in order to accommodate heavier trains—again in record time.

Today, it would take years and millions of dollars just to get an environmental impact statement approved to build such a bridge.  Maybe that's why it took over two years to rebuild just one interchange on Interstate 10 in Tucson.

Moreover, the Office of Federal Contract Compliance and EEOC would be watching a railroad today with their beady eyes to make sure that no worker from any of the official races, genders and age groups was discriminated against, according to very malleable and fuzzy definitions of discrimination.  At the same time, the railroad would face pressure from activist identity groups to add women to the board, whether or not they knew anything about running a railroad.  In response to the pressure, the railroad would try to land a twofer; that is, someone like Hillary Clinton who is both a woman and a politico.  That way, the company would get political protection and activist protection in one board member.

Red tape has been a growth industry for decades, employing millions of regulatory experts, bureaucrats, enforcers, lawyers, tax accountants, lobbyists, and lower-level administrators, in both the public and private sectors, from both the Democrat and Republican parties.  Due to the iron law of concentrated benefits and dispersed costs, the beneficiaries of red tape organize and fight to protect their interests, while the victims of red tape, although much larger in numbers, remain fragmented and thus politically powerless to stop the tape dispensers.

Ironically, much of the regulatory red tape has its origins in the laws and agencies established during the Great Depression.

An even bigger hurdle to the establishment of a new WPA-like agency is the transformation of the American culture since the Great Depression.

First, the American work ethic and can-do spirit have been weakened by entitlements, welfare, and the nanny state. 

Fortunately, the ethic and spirit are still alive among the medical personnel who are risking their lives trying to save the lives of others during the pandemic.  Kudos to them, as well as to the grocery clerks, first responders, meat packers, and others who continue to work in spite of the risk.  Kudos also to altruistic volunteers who help their neighbors.

Unfortunately, such community spirit is not widespread, in spite of k-12 schools and universities constantly harping about community, communitarianism, and social justice.  It doesn't take much imagination to imagine the outcry if all able-bodied Americans were required to pick up litter, clear brush, or lay cement sidewalks in exchange for government money.  The left would claim that such work would be demeaning and would disproportionally affect minorities.  The right would say that it smacks of communism, because the government would be crowding out private industry.  And libertarians would equate CCC-like work camps to the gulags and slave labor under Stalin.

Then there would be issues of race and class.   The good news is that a new CCC or WPA would be racially integrated, unlike the segregation during the Great Depression, when there were separate divisions for whites, blacks and Native Americans.  The bad news is that as one climbs down the socioeconomic ladder today, racial friction tends to increase, as evidenced at the bottom of the ladder in prisons, where whites, blacks and Latinos are at each other's throats, oftentimes literally.  How would that play out in work camps?

In a similar vein, what about substance abuse and drug dealing?  How would that play out?

And how would it play out that 40% of Americans are obese and another 30% are overweight, unlike the fit CCC men who worked shirtless in the summer heat of Arizona and slept in barracks without air-conditioning?  

It wouldn't play out well, which is why a Works Progress Administration would not work today.