Mere Cracks in Democrat Leadership or Will Emanuel, Obama Attacks Lead Teachers, Other Public Workers to Sit Out 2012 Presidential Race?

On the one hand, we have this story that hints to cracks in Democratic leadership, suggesting that some Democratic Party leaders, or elites, are disgusted with Rahm Emanuel's fight against Chicago schools and teachers. (Chicago Mayor Emanuel is continuing predecessor Richard Daley's school closing program.) Rev. Jesse Jackson has called Rahm Emanuel's school policies, "educational apartheid." Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog reports that Nance Pelosi will appear this morning at Rev. Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition headquarters, where she is expected to endorse son Jesse Jackson, Jr.'s reelection bid to Congress to the 2nd Congressional District of Illinois.

But don't hold your breath for open breaches in the Democratic Party elite. The wind is blowing in the direction of more of the same public sector austerity. Take note:
In New York there is Governor Mario Cuomo who is on a holy war crusade against organized labor, government employees and their pensions: from Bloomberg Business Week, January 27, 2011: "Cuomo’s New York Budget Faces Union Fight on Pensions, Teachers".

Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) -- New York Governor Andrew Cuomo proposed a $132.5 billion budget that links an increase in education spending to a new teacher-evaluation system and raises the retirement age for future workers, a move already drawing opposition from unions.

Cuomo’s spending plan for fiscal 2013 closes a $2 billion deficit with no new taxes in part by finding $1.14 billion in savings from consolidating purchasing and human resources, he said yesterday in Albany, the capital. A tax deal reached last month that raised rates on those earning $2 million or more added $1.5 billion in revenue.

The proposal follows through on Cuomo’s pledge to raise spending on Medicaid and education by about 4 percent. The boost in school aid will be tied to compliance with a new statewide teacher-evaluation system, a plan similar to one proposed last week by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The governor suggested he expects opposition from the teachers’ unions.

One wonders what is driving Cuomo to do this. Most likely is a pandering to middle class voters wincing at taxes, and willing to cut living and retirement standards of public employees.

From public employee unions we do not hear much, but Danny Donohue, president of the Civil Service Employees Association, the state’s largest public-workers union said,

“The proposal for a new public employee pension tier is an assault on the middle class and a cheap shot at public employees . . . . It will provide no short-term savings and will mean people will have to work longer, pay more and gain less benefit.

. . . . . . . . .

Then we have Connecticut Governor Dan Malloy, who apparently is now beginning to pursue a war against teachers. (This is an about-face to his pandering to teachers in his 2010 election campaign: "Malloy’s pitch to teachers: pensions to stay, binding arbitration a right, Foley would slash funds," from the Raising Hale site, September 22, 2010.) In his February 8, 2012 State of the State he said, “…only thing you have to do is show up for four years.” (No, he was not talking about being governor, he was speaking about teachers.) He is the state's first Democratic governor since 1991 and he is making this anti-tenure statement?
Malloy further said,

“Since 2009, 31 states have enacted tenure reform, including our neighboring states of New York, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. It’s time for Connecticut to act. ”

Jonathan Pelto's "wait, what?" blog pointed out that Malloy conveniently skipped over the fact that Connecticut with its four year probation length is one of the nine states with the longest probationary period for new teachers.

Democratic Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, "Quinn looks to shift teacher pension funding to local school districts", February 4, 2012.

And in Maryland, with Democratic Governor Martin O'Malley and Democratic-led Senate and House, we are seeing the impact of the kind of shift of pension funding to local districts. The effect is local layoffs, cuts to libraries: from CBS Baltimore, February 29, 2012, "Counties Warn Of Cuts If They Pay Md. Pensions,"

Montgomery County school officials say they would have to cut 600 teachers and increase class sizes if lawmakers in Annapolis approve Gov. Martin O’Malley’s proposal to shift teacher pension costs to the counties.

Board of Education President Shirley Brandman told the County Council on Tuesday that class sizes could increase by an average of 2.4 students per class. She says that would be the result if the school system has to pay $38 million in pension costs in the 2013 fiscal year.

Prince George’s County officials say they’re also worried the shift would lead to cuts in the workforce and services.

Politicians, Democratic and Republican, love to use the words, "cut," "trim." But they are skipping over the fact that those things mean the diminishing of the quality of life for public workers AND for the USERS of public services (schools, police, libraries, medical facilities).

FDR Didn't Govern from 'the Center' -- Neither Should Obama

From alternet.org, another articulate voice calling on President-elect Barack Obama to govern in a progressive direction, not from the cautious, timid center:

Gray Brechin, "FDR Didn't Govern from 'the Center' -- Neither Should Obama":
We can't forget what bold and ingenious leadership can accomplish against the caution of low expectations in harsh economic times.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi wasted no time cautioning Americans that they should not let their hopes run away with them just because the Democrats scored an electoral landslide. Calling herself a "proud progressive," Pelosi advised president-elect Obama's supporters to exercise the diminished expectations of political prudence: "The country must be governed from the middle," she said a day after his victory.

November marked the 75th anniversary of one of the least known relief agencies to come out of the New Deal -- the Civil Works Administration. At a time when the press regularly fuses FDR's jaunty image with that of Barack Obama's -- and when the president-elect himself vows to create 2.5 million new jobs within two years as "a plan big enough to meet the challenges we face" -- we should remember how much more one short-lived agency accomplished through the winter of another economic crisis.

The Speaker, whose father represented Baltimore as a New Deal Democrat, must know that Franklin Roosevelt did not govern from the middle. He chose a Midwestern social worker steeped in the Social Gospel movement at Iowa's Grinnell College to run his relief programs, Harry Hopkins knew that legions of impoverished Americans could not wait for the cautious policies of Harold Ickes' Public Works Administration to provide them with jobs. Neither could his boss.

On November 9, 1933 President Roosevelt issued an executive order creating the Civil Works Administration. He did so by moving $400 million ($6.4 billion in today's dollars) previously allocated to the PWA into the CWA account. A meeting of governors, mayors and other public officials six days later at Washington's Mayflower Hotel effectively launched the agency.

Five days later, Eleanor Roosevelt hosted a White House gathering to organize women's participation in the program. Three days after that -- with the Government Printing Office working round the clock to cut checks -- CWA workers shared wages of almost $8 million. On November 28, Hopkins created a Civil Works Service to employ white collar workers as teachers, surveyors, artists, nurses, librarians, musicians, and other public servants.

By December 7 -- less than a month after Roosevelt's executive order -- the CWA had two million Americans working on a vast array of socially beneficial projects. By January 18, employment had doubled to more than four million. U.S. population was then less than half of today's.

Hopkins likened the CWA workers to foot soldiers with the difference that, "The results achieved have been the reverse of those usually brought about by old-style wars." The CWA's work was, like the title of a famous William James essay, "the moral equivalent of war." As such Hopkins noted that "Hardly a community but can show some lasting benefit derived from Civil Works activities: a street paved, a school-house reconditioned, a nursery school installed, a new playground."

CWA workers toiled through a hard winter building and repairing 244,000 miles or roads, laying water and sewage mains, constructing 350 swimming pools and 4000 athletic fields. Their jackhammers broke frozen ground to make Newark's airport, one of a thousand built around the country. New York Park Commissioner Robert Moses set three shifts of CWA crews working around the clock to renovate Central and Prospect Parks. A team of artists painted frescos in San Francisco's Coit Tower while CWA orchestras and bands performed concerts free to the public. The agency employed as many as 50,000 teachers and built or refurbished 4000 schools to revive the nation's dying public education system. CWA workers restored historic buildings and launched the Historic American Building Survey which continues to meticulously record historic structures for the Library of Congress 75 years later.

Hopkins and Roosevelt intended the CWA only to bridge an emergency. It was terminated on March 31, but the Depression, unfortunately, was not. A year later, the more famous Works Progress Administration picked up where the CWA had left off, employing 8.5 million people in its seven productive years. Harry Hopkins ran that as well.

Hopkins hoped that "Long after the workers of the CWA are dead and gone and these hard times are forgotten, their effort will be remembered by permanent useful works in every county of every state." Alas, he was wrong, though as he predicted we "ride over bridges they made, travel on their highways, attend schools they built, navigate waterways they improved, do [our] public business in courthouses and state capitols which workers from CWA rescued from disrepair."

Unlike the WPA, the CWA left almost no markers to commemorate the achievements of four and a half months of heroic activity. We unwittingly take the achievements of the CWA -- like so much else of the New Deal -- for granted while the New Deal's eternal enemies echo the fable that federal workers did little but lean on their shovels. But as winter approaches, the CWA's record reminds us of what bold and ingenious leadership can accomplish against the caution of low expectations in harsh economic times. Indeed, it must.