Will Bush follow FDR's bad legacy?
It wasn't the crash of 1929 that put this country into a 10 year Depression, it was the government policies that followed trying to correct from above. First Hoover, then Roosevelt. FDR cleaned up his legacy with WWII, but he drastically extended the Depression which preceded those years and set the ground work for a huge federal bureaucracy.
In 1933 there was a moment when the U.S. really did seem poised for recovery -- the moment of Franklin Roosevelt's inauguration. Confronting the banking crisis, President Roosevelt did what President Bush, Congress and the Treasury are likely to do in coming days: create a mechanism to sort out banks and their holdings, to separate good assets from bad. Story here at WSJ
I hope somebody in Washington has read American history. We know the direction Obama will take--any route that takes freedom away from the American people, especially people who have investments and personal assets who aren't dependent on the dole. But what about McCain? He's speaking out, but he was in Congress too. Obama was only "present," a newcomer who was basically a cut-out observer who has been running for president most of his term, but McCain actually was there. What's his record on Fannie and Fred and the Fed?
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Yeah, that damn FDR. Imagine, starting programs that gave people jobs so that they could eat and provide for their families. And then when they spent that money, it gave the economy a boost, which helped propel the country out of the depression.
You do know, don't you, that FDRs first budget was balanced? And that it didn't help at all. It wasn't until he adopted Keynes' idea of direct governmental involvement in the economy that the country started to recover. And, of course, the recovery was completed when we entered in World War II.. not because of private investment, but because of governmental spending.
FDR said it best, and it is applicable today:
"I know how the knees of all our rugged individualists were trembling four years ago and how their hearts fluttered. They came to Washington in great numbers. Washington did not look like a dangerous bureaucracy to them. Oh no! It looked like an emergency hospital. All of the distinguished patients wanted two things-a quick hypodermic to end the pain and a course of treatment to cure the disease. They wanted them in a hurry; we gave them both. And now most of the patients seem to be doing very nicely. Some of them are even well enough to throw their crutches at the doctor."
Speaking of studying U.S. History, you might want to crack open a few more books yourself.
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