Revisionist History

Revisionist History // Date: 15 February 2024

???????????? My friends who winter in gated communities in warm places sometimes forget that the prosperity we enjoy results in part from actions taken by government in decades gone by. But for the empowering of labor unions by the Wagner Act and the passage of the GI Bill, it is questionable whether America would have had the extraordinary increase in per capita income as we did in the years after World War?II. Income equality reached its peak in the mid-1960s.? Income inequality has been on the rise ever since.

No doubt about it, lots of people have worked very hard, but the framework was established because of the work of members of Congress with respect to labor rights and the American Legion and others who worked to create the G.I. Bill.

My generation may not have been a direct beneficiary of either piece of legislation, but we were the indirect beneficiaries.? But for VA mortgages, many of my friends would have grown up in tenements as their parents had before them. But for various federal programs, many who have worked hard and enjoyed a good life may not have been able to complete their education or be educated at all; I especially think of those who qualify for Pell Grants.? What about SBA loans? Let’s not forget Medicare!

Every single aspect of American life today is the result of actions taken by government, as well as by the private sector in decades gone by.

At the local level, I fear that young people in government, often those who hail from other parts of the country, do not understand how difficult it was to govern in Massachusetts; as recently as the 1970s, Massachusetts and Boston were the victims of a shrinking economy.? Yes, we benefitted from the brain power which graduates yearly from our universities, but we were the direct beneficiaries of proactive government, creating programs which resulted in transportation options for those who wanted to work, and which provided industrial revenue bonds and other financial incentives so that companies would grow.?

All of what we see around us did not happen in a vacuum.? Governor Sargent and Mayor White stopped major highway construction and we invested in transit instead.? The Orange Line reinvented Jamaica Plain, Medford, Malden and other communities.? Quincy Market happened because the City Council borrowed money and signed a 99-year lease.? Copley Place happened because of an Urban Development Action Grant.? The Charlestown Navy Yard happened because of a grant from the Economic Development Administration.? The list goes on and on.

We were the beneficiaries of what were in effect open borders over 100 years ago.? Had my family not left abject poverty in Sicily early in the 20th Century, they might not have been able to get into this country.?

Since the 1960s, we have also been the beneficiaries of an increased labor pool because of immigration policies which have not restricted immigration based upon the national population in 1890.? Those were the rules established by Congress, one hundred years ago, when on the floors of the House and the Senate, my ancestors and the ancestors of many of those who have succeeded in recent decades were referred to as emanating from “the sewers of Europe.”? Let us never hear those words again from anyone in public life, many of whom do not understand either history or economics.