Posted By:
Todd Schultz"It is well documented that FDR's policies (which were very similar to what our politicians are doing now) only exacerbated this country's economic woes. And, dragged out our depressed economy for another 8 years."
Maybe on Planet Ted, where apparently FOX news is the only source of information.
Again, many/ most economists and the world's current Nobel prize holder in economics state otherwise.
"In a November 10, 2008, New York Times column, Krugman wrote that Roosevelt's policies included "long-run achievements" that "remain the bedrock of our nation's economic stability" and that Roosevelt's short-term successes were constrained because "his economic policies were too cautious."
Krugman further wrote:
Now, there's a whole intellectual industry, mainly operating out of right-wing think tanks, devoted to propagating the idea that F.D.R. actually made the Depression worse. So it's important to know that most of what you hear along those lines is based on deliberate misrepresentation of the facts. The New Deal brought real relief to most Americans."
"Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, wrote: "In reality, any careful reading showed that the New Deal policies substantially ameliorated the effects of the Great Depression for tens of millions of people. The major economic failing of the New Deal was that President Roosevelt was not prepared to push the policies as far as necessary to fully lift the economy out of the Great Depression." Baker continued:
Roosevelt was too worried about the whining of the anti-stimulus crowd that he confronted. He remained concerned about balancing the budget when the proper goal of fiscal policy should have been large deficits to stimulate the economy. Roosevelt's policies substantially reduced the unemployment rate from the 25 percent peak when he first took office, but they did not get the unemployment rate back into single digits."
"Federal Reserve Chair Ben Bernanke -- appointed by President George W. Bush -- wrote in his Essays on the Great Depression, "Only with the New Deal's rehabilitation of the financial system in 1933-35 did the economy begin its slow emergence from the Great Depression."
So learn to listen to someone other than Bret Hume and you may take a more "fair and balanced" understanding of what occurred with the New Deal.