FDR is credited by many with brining us out of the Depression. This is demonstrably false and it is important that we inform others because the left is trying to use that idea to enlarge the federal government and fundamentally change America. FDR did many unconstitutional things during his presidency, but since the people wanted change they didn't care. He spent billions on public works projects and other programs trying to "prime the pump" and get the economy moving again. Well, none of it worked. He and the congress enacted some needed legislation that regulate the banks and wall street, and established the FDIC. Those were probably needed and healthy. Pretty much everything else he did was counterproductive though. He raised taxes, which hindered investment and kept unemployment high. He enacted wage and price controls, as well as many other regulations on industry that discouraged economic activity. All of this remaking of America made the business environment unpredictable. People don't invest in an unpredictable environment. They hold onto their money.
With all this spending and restructuring of the economy you would think that the economy would have recovered right? Wrong. Look at the unemployment graph on this website
Roosevelt was elected in 1932 and took power in 1933. All of his programs never brought unemployment below 10 percent. It wasn't even a steady decline. We had a second depression in 1938. That's just when all of his programs would have had time to take effect.
Of course people could make the argument that his programs weren't given enough time to work. But if they were exactly what the country needed then why did it take until 1941 for unemployment to get anywhere approaching acceptable?
Now go to this unemployment report from November 1980-January 1989, from Reagan's election to Bush I's inagauguration.
He inherited an unemployment rate of 7.5 percent from Carter in Jan 1980. It peaked at 10.8 percent in November 1982. That's two years of high unemployment, totally unacceptable. But look what happens afterward, a slow, but steady decline until it was at acceptable levels, almost full employment by the end of his second term.
Granted, this was with a war buildup, just as FDR's pre-war buildup, but on a much larger scale.
The economies are far different and the world situation was different so you can't fairly compare them. But they are worth comparing because Reagan was cutting taxes and deregulating the economy while FDR was doing the exact opposite. Reagan's growth wasn't based on government remaking America, he let the private sector remake itself.
If we want a stagnant economy, if we want to become like Europe and Japan, then we can sit back and let the left ruin our private sector by strangling it with red tape and higher taxes. Or we can fight them, pass actual reforms instead of wholesale takeovers of the economy and let the private sector do what it does best, create wealth and jobs. The government has never done that and it won't now. During this crisis we need to not let our fears allow us to let benevolent tyrants take control of our country.
Sure we need reforms in many aspects of our government. Let the congress pass those new rules to make business more able to fairly provide goods and services. Don't hamper them with more red tape and taxes. And especially don't hamper them with Marxist wage controls and profit limits like are in the current health care bill. Don't let them use the government to re-engineer our society into one that looks like Europe. We are not subjects dependent on government programs for our well being. We are citizens of a republic, if given the chance and the freedom we will provide for ourselves. If the government would get out of business and step back into its proper goal as the referee, not a player, then our country would be a lot better off.
