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Do New Deals Work Elsewhere?

The New Deal plan of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt aimed to lift America out of the Great Depression by creating jobs such as public works projects, and spending the money necessary to lift the country out of the doldrums. With one of Mexico?s presidential candidates considering the same sort of plan for his country, the legacy of the New Deal lives on ? even though what really helped to bring the United States out of the Depression was the entry of America into the Second World War following the surprise December 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

The notion of creating jobs is not a new one, but it is remarkable in that it is being considered in Mexico, a nation that, due to the flow of illegal immigration and previous economic policies - which included encouraging illegal migration to the U.S. - created the perception that Mexico City figured the key to Mexican financial success lay in Mexicans living abroad and sending money home. The recent months have been often tense, with Mexico having to deal with America to the north being opposed to illegal immigration from Mexico, and Mexico also having to deal with illegal immigrants coming up into Mexico from Central and South America.

However, there are those that criticize public works programs in Mexico as unworkable, and insist on hammering out some deal or other with Washington that would enable those Mexicans living illegally in the United States to continue to work and send money home as part of a guest worker program. For many Mexicans, though, it is likely that the very discussion of trying to fix Mexico?s internal problems with internal solutions has brought some level of hope for a better future?at home.