The stimulus and white construction workers

In light of the Wall Street Journal’s article the other day revealing the mindboggling extent to which the “stimulus” package is about transferring money to Democratic party constituency groups, the meaning of Robert Reich’s “white male construction workers” remark becomes clear. On January 7 he told a Congressional committee:

I am concerned, as I’m sure many of you are, that these jobs not simply go to high-skilled people who are already professionals or to white male construction workers…I have nothing against white male construction workers, I’m just saying there are other people who have needs as well.

Now, as the sort of pro-minority, anti-white statement that we expect to hear from liberals, Reich’s comment, while offensive, is not that interesting. But as a comment about the nature of the “stimulus” package it is highly interesting. There were those of us who naively thought that the purpose of the “stimulus” was to stimulate spending and investment, which in turn would create more jobs and return the economy to health. But that’s not the Democrats’ view of the “stimulus.” They view the stimulus in Rod Blagojevich terms:

“I’ve got this thing [i.e., the “stimulus” package] and it’s f——— golden …”

Ok, they’ve got this golden thing. What do they want to do with it? They want (a) to help their friends and political supporters, and (b) to redistribute wealth (which is largely another way of saying they want to help their friends and political supporters). Just as liberals as a general proposition are not interested in the creation of wealth (they take the existence of wealth for granted), but only in distributing wealth equally once it’s created, they don’t care about stimulating the economy, but only about distributing the “stimulus” dollars equally.

Moreover, even when the stimulus is not about pure cash transfer payments from tax payers to Democratic constituency groups such as welfare recipients and teachers, it’s still not about stimulating economic activity and returning the economy to health; it’s about creating government-paid jobs. And if it’s about creating government-paid jobs, then “equity” among the racial, gender, and class groups who get these jobs becomes of central concern.

We can understand this by looking at it in terms of the New Deal. President Roosevelt’s Works Projects Administration employed out-of-work men in useful projects such as building federal post offices. But it did not stimulate investment and spending and end the Depression.

Today’s Democrats see the “stimulus” as a super WPA program. Given that fact, and, further, given the race-conscious, pro-minority lens through which today’s Democrats view America (which was not the case with 1930s Democrats), they are naturally going to want to assure racial and gender equity among the groups that get these government-paid jobs.

So there you have it. The real aim of the supposed stimulus plan is (a) to transfer wealth from wealth producers to Democratic Party constituencies, and (b) to create government-paid jobs. And to the extent that it’s about the latter, Reich’s statement about not giving all the jobs to white male construction workers makes perfect sense.

* * *

Michelle Malkin was on the Reich story from the start.

- end of initial entry -

Mark Jaws writes:

Oy vey es mir!

The thought of Stimulus Gelt going to such Robert Reich-approved construction workers and supervisors makes me go plotz. Would you want to drive across such a bridge? This is not your grandfather’s WPA. In the 1930s the workers looked like us, were smart like us, and had a sense of work ethic. Just what does Reich expect these welfare state clients to be able to build?

Mark K. writes:

Oh quit kvetching about the stimulus package. You got what you wanted—the Obama presidency (as you indicated time after time that an Obama presidency would be preferable). Your stimulus package came through—you now have a stimulant to keep you grumpy over the next eight years. America voted the way you suggested—your dream came true…

LA replies:

You were angry with me over my criticisms of Palin, and I think this is the first time you’ve written to me since September.

I said (oh, 800 times) that an Obama presidency, as bad as it would be, would be preferable to a McCain presidency, because at least conservatives/Republicans would be opposing a leftist Democratic president, instead of embracing a somewhat less leftist Republican president. There has been a unanimous Republican House vote against the stimulus package. That is life, and that life may lead to more good things. If McCain had been elected, there would not have been that life, but a continuation of the same death we’ve had under Busheron.

Also, Mark implies that since I declined to support McCain, I now contradict myself by complaining about Obama. I remind Mark that I did not say that an Obama presidency would be good. I said it would be terrible. I said that I opposed Obama before the election, and would continue opposing him after the election. But I also said that continuing under the Bush-McCain-neocon ascendancy was intolerable.

Sage McLaughlin writes:

It occurs to me that lurking behind all this concern over “white construction workers” is really a concern on the part of leftist lawmakers to try to keep their Mexican electoral power base growing. The decline in the power of the white vote is closely linked to the influx of unskilled workers from the Third World, especially Mexico. Economic trends are already inspiring many of them to bail out and head for home (their American patriotism seems to be made of rather thinner stuff than their flag-waving DC marchers would have us believe). Bribing them with billions of dollars in make-work construction projects seems like a pretty obvious way to stem that negative tide, and to maintain the leftward drift of the American electorate.

LA replies:

Excellent point. Really a great insight.

Ken Hechtman, VFR’s Canadian leftist reader, writes:

True story: Back in November, a friend of mine working for a Quebec Solidaire candidate on the provincial election showed me a very similar draft press release. She’d called for all sorts of stimulus-related infrastructure spending while taking a swipe at the “white male construction workers” who’d build it.

I knew enough to tell her to cut the line and she knew enough to listen. And we’re a couple of amateurs working for a fringe party. Robert Reich is supposed to be the Democratic Party professional.

Terry Morris writes:

You wrote:

Just as liberals as a general proposition are not interested in the creation of wealth (they take the existence of wealth for granted), but only in distributing wealth equally once it’s created,…

There is a wonderful scene in the movie “The Aviator” that your statement put me in mind of, a scene in which Howard Hughes and Katherine Hepburn are sitting at the dinner table with Hepburn’s family in the family home on the Hepburn family estate, which apparently they’d turned into some kind of artist colony. The matriarch, sitting at the head of the table announces to Mr. Hughes that they (the Hepburns) are all socialists, that they don’t care about money. To which Hughes responds, slightly under his breath, “because you have it.” The lady quickly asks, “excuse me!, what did you say?!,” and Hughes replies, speaking loudly and directly this time “I said that you don’t care about money because you’ve always had it!”

I think this is basically how elitist liberals are. They don’t care about the creation of wealth, and thus they don’t care about the creators of wealth, because they’ve always had it, because wealth, via the creators of wealth, has always been there for them to dole out to whomever they so choose, and they somehow think that they can take away all of the incentive to create wealth, yet the creative and industrious will still create wealth.

Jeff in England writes:

The financial crisis, if it keeps getting worse, could significantly affect the racial and religious demographic. If America (and the West) completely collapses financially speaking then immigration to American and the West could slow down significantly. It is a big ‘if’. In addition, certain groups of people may decide to leave en masse.

It is almost impossible to predict what would exactly happen if America goes completely bust but it is worth thinking about the possiblities.

Jeff continues:

Following on, this financial crisis, if it grows significantly worse, could spur on many Western people to reconsider a more traditionalist conservative framework by which to live their lives. Perhaps not exactly traditionalist Christian but something near enough.

The financial crisis may save Western civilisation Larry (and your agenda). It just has to keep getting worse! I’m totally serious here, this needs to be looked at. Financial collapse creating a vacuum which a more traditionalist conservatism could fill.

Of course there is always a risk of something resembling fascism filling the void as well. As we saw in Hitler’s Germany. And the Jews might be ‘in the s___’ again.

LA replies:

Jeff’s comment fits right into Sage McLaughlin’s interpretation of Reich’s “white construction workers” remark. The idea is, liberals see the economic crisis as spelling the end of their most fundamental project, the Third-Worldization of America. So they have to shore up the Third-Worlders and keep them from leaving by assuring them that the economic crisis has got something for them.

Terry Morris writes:

Sage McLaughlin wrote:

Economic trends are already inspiring many of them to bail out and head for home.

Yes, between July of 2007 and July of 2008, at least 1.3 million by official government estimates. But it’s not just economic trends which are inspiring them to hightail it back to Mexico, it is also the creation and enforcement in recent years of state and local immigration laws, which is the reason we can expect the Senate Amnesty bill to come up again. The Exodus must be stopped at all costs.

Terry Morris writes:

Jeff wrote:

Following on, this financial crisis, if it grows significantly worse, could spur on many Western people to reconsider a more traditionalist conservative framework by which to live their lives. Perhaps not exactly traditionalist Christian but something near enough.

People will go back to their roots, whatever those roots might be. I’ve thought about this too. In fact, I thought about it just the other day when I read your article contrasting Obama’s speech with the Prime Minister of Singapore’s New Year’s message in which the latter stated:

11. Singaporeans instinctively understand this. A recent survey by OCBC found that this year the top three Singaporean dreams were starting a family, settling down and buying a home. In contrast, last year’s top three dreams were seeing the world, self-improvement and making money. Amidst uncertainty and turbulence, priorities have shifted from personal wants and ambitions to home, relationships and family.

Karen writes from England:

Do the Mexicans have anything to go home to? I am always sceptical when I hear claims that immigrants are returning home. In most cases their home countries have nothing to offer; no jobs, no welfare, no benefits, no health care or education. The Poles in Britain are not going back to Poland despite many losing jobs here. The benefits in Britain are better. Better to be idle in the West than working back home. Third World immigrants will still flood into the West regardless of the state of the economy. Now in Britain there are strikes over companies hiring foreign workers over British workers. This is new and didn’t happen during the boom years. The white people in Britain are striking and in Paris they are rioting. The whites are being unsettled by the economic crash and are finally waking up their treasonous politicians. There is no reduction in the numbers of immigrants coming in. Flood in they will until the whole gravy train of welfare stops.

LA replies:

That’s a really powerful comment.

Karen replies:

It’s true. The welfare in Britain and perhaps the USA is better than an average Third World wage. Throw in the housing allowances, paid council tax, free medical care, functioning transport and infrastructure and 24 hour cable TV with over 100 chanels and it is quite simply a paradise. Now why go back to a place like Mexico or Pakistan or Bangladesh just because of a 3% drop in GDP? We are not going back to the Stone Age. Mexico and the rest are in a permanent economic crash. Politicians will let the immigrants in and keep them here all expenses paid until the IMF gets called in and cuts the welfare budget or the white population demands that the party gets stopped. Karen

LA replies:

I’ve never been able to understand how Britain and other European countries have been able to afford the lavish subsidies for immigrants.

Terry Morris writes:

Karen wrote:

Do the Mexicans have anything to go home to? I am always skeptical when I hear claims that immigrants are returning home. In most cases their home countries have nothing to offer; no jobs, no welfare, no benefits, no health care or education.

Don’t be skeptical, Karen, not about the Mexican Exodus. Attrition is real. Many of those who have returned to Mexico over the last months have gone through the Mexican consulate in Dallas, there are newspaper articles which tell of their plights, local television reports, and so forth and so on. And of course, in certain places like my state, Oklahoma, we’ve seen a decline in their numbers, which is not to say they are not moving to other states, some of them are, but some of them have also seen the handwriting on the wall after moving to bordering states which have written their own laws following the pattern of Oklahoma’s, and are going back home where they know they really belong.

As to your statement concerning what their home countries have (or have not) to offer them when and if they return, wise state lawmakers like Randy Terrill of Oklahoma realized this several years ago, and they realized also that if the same applied to illegal immigrants then living in our state, that the choice for them would be easy to make—it is the choice between the two places, both of which offer no social programs, few or no jobs, etc.; one of which offers familial roots, familiarity, of being accustomed to the climatic conditions of the home country, etc…

When things get rough, what better place than home?

LA replies:

Perhaps there is a difference here between America and Britain, related to Britain’s seemingly vastly more generous state subsidies.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at January 30, 2009 09:14 AM | Send