President Obama was an exceptional law student, but I suspect that he slept during history class, because he clearly is not aware of the wise and remarkably honest words of Henry Morgenthau Jr, the Secretary of the Treasury during the FDR administration. On May 1939, testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee he stated:
"We are spending more money than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started and an enormous debt to boot."
I don't fully blame FDR for prolonging the Great Depression through his failed economic policies, because he did not have the benefit of historical hindsight. But, Obama has no such excuse, he has access to the experience and analysis of Morgenthau, the Congressional Budget Office and contemporary economists, all whom indicate that his "stimulus plan" will have long term negative economic effects. Lucky for Obama, most voters do not know history and an electorate that is poorly versed on history is destined to repeat their mistakes over and over again.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Morgenthau,_Jr.
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3327
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/04/cbo-obama-stimulus-harmful-over-long-haul/
what are you talking about? when fdr took over unemployment was at 29% when the war started the rate was approx 10% not perfect but a heck of alot better.
ReplyDeleteIf you claim that things improved despite fdr ok, but to say that nothing changed is wrong on the facts.
Dan,
ReplyDeleteWhen FDR took office in 1933, unemployment was 24.75%. By 1938 it declined to 18.91%.
In 1938 Roosevelt began a rearnament program which put many people to work and by 1940 had helped lower unemployment to 14.5%.
And in 1940 Roosevelt initiated the draft and accelerated the rarnament program which pulled millions of Americans from the ranks of the unemployed and helped lower the unemployment rate to 9.66% by 1941.
So, evidence indicates that:
1. Military and industrial expansion in the face of the inevitably second world were the prime factors that lowered unemployment.
2. FDR's non-military policies may have given people hold and eased the pain of the great depression, but they did not cure the great depression and unemployment.
3. Certain policies like the Smoot-Hawley Act may have extended the great depression.
4. After the war we were able to pay down the massive debt and employ returning soldiers, because of a uniquely favorable situation: for nearly 10 years after the war we were the sole industrial power. We could direct our resources towards industrial advancement, while the rest of Europe had to rebuild the most basic infrastructure.
Our situation is quite different:
1. When FDR began his government expansion, the national debt was relatively low, so there was "room to grow."
On the other hand, Obama is undertaking a massive expansion of spending on top of an already crushing national debt.
2. When FDR began his military expansion, the budget and size of the armed forces were remarkably small.
On the other hand, our military budget and number of personel are already quite large. In addition, relative to the 1930's the army is less labor intensive and more tech-capital intensive.
3. When FDR increased federal spending, entitlements consumed a miniscule portion of the federal budget.
On the other hand, a huge portion of our federal budget goes towards entitlements (social security, medicaide, medicare etc.), so there is a lot less room for Obama to increase productive spending.
http://www.lycos.com/info/franklin-delano-roosevelt--united-states.html