On Resurrecting the Civil Works Administration

Charles Peters and Timothy Noah have another terrific piece in today's Slate, explaining the difference in how stimulus funding works when it's delivered via privately-contracted infrastructure projects, as opposed to when it's delivered by making the people who work on these projects federal employees. I say terrific not because I necessarily agree that the federal government should hire a ton of road-builders, but because I think the piece is useful from an explanatory perspective.

It's rare that we have analogues this direct with policy debates, and it's useful to see how debates over contracting, federal employment, oversight, etc., played out under Roosevelt. It's also nice to have a reminder that though the federal bureaucracy can be slow, it can also be a tool for mobilizing incredibly quickly, when necessary. (Updated) Peters and Noah write:

The PWA's poor performance relative to the CWA was more than just a matter of being ruled by the wrong Harry. Structurally, the CWA was much better able than the PWA to mobilize quickly because it could avoid the cumbersome process of putting contracts out to bid and all the other obstacles to swift action that arise with public-private partnerships. (Government by contract was popular then, and remains so today, because it allows a politician to create the semblance of government action without expanding the government work force. It also caters to the public's belief that the private sector is more capable, an illusion punctured by recent scandals surrounding Blackwater and other U.S. contractors in Iraq.) Hopkins enjoyed immediate carte blanche to apply directly the apparatus of the federal government. He shifted staff from the federal relief program he'd headed up, seized tools and equipment from Army warehouses, and cut checks through the Veterans Administration's vast disbursement system.

(Update: Block quotes are from the story I'm talking about, not an argument I'm making myself. Just so y'all know.)