Friday, February 19, 2010

Hoover was hardly a conservative

He was a progressive, and FDR followed his path until it was set in concrete and took 10 years and WWII to recover. This letter was in today's WSJ by George C. Leef. According to various bios on the internet, he's a libertarian and did run for office in Michigan back in the mid-80s.
    "The standard leftist narrative about our history holds that President Herbert Hoover was a die-hard laissez-faire advocate who wouldn't budge from his capitalist convictions even as the nation's economy spun into the Great Depression. The truth is that Hoover was a "big government conservative" who believed that aggressive federal economic intervention would speed recovery and reduce suffering. He specifically rejected the advice of Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon that the best policy would be the same as President Warren Harding had pursued after the sharp 1920-21 recession: to cut taxes, cut federal spending and allow market adjustments to proceed unimpeded.

    FDR did not take the country down a different path, but accelerated rapidly down the failed, counter-productive statist path Hoover had chosen. The parallels between the Hoover-Roosevelt era and the Bush-Obama era are striking."
I've been saying this for years, and I'm not even a libertarian. George W. Bush spent like a Democrat, especially on social programs, and it took Obama to get even more reckless. But at least GWB had the economic sense to encourage more tax money for the government coffers instead of discouraging it with punitive regulations, cap and trade, higher taxes, and finger wagging threats.

5 comments:

Factsarefacts said...

"George W. Bush spent like a Democrat" That's not exactly right, he spent more like Reagan.

National Debt Increase by President

(Dem) Carter/4 yrs
42%

(Rep) Reagan/8 yrs
189%

(Rep) Geo H.W. Bush/4 yrs.
55%

(Dem) Clinton/8 yrs.
36%

(Rep) Geo W Bush/8 yrs.
89%


Snow jobs would be so much easier, if it weren't for those pesky ol' facts. Here's the link if anyone's interested in facts. If not, just pretend no one keeps track of these things.

Click here

Norma said...

You always say that, and always quote your favorite source trying to show how those Democrats are just tight wads and would never throw money at social problems. And you see nothing wrong with Obama's debt load and marxism.

Factsarefacts said...

What, may I ask, do you find wrong with my source? I always provide a link backing up what I'm saying, rather than just making some unsupported off the cuff remark. If I can't provide such a link supporting my case, then I don't make a case.

I don't picture you as being one of those people who always invokes the old ...I don't have to answer anything, it's my blog...argument. So, if my data is wrong, hopefully you'll provide a link to another source that proves my figures to be incorrect.

Norma said...

I'll stick with what I said. Bush spent like a Democrat, he was no conservative. But Obama has made him look like a piker.

CrisisMaven said...

No Hoover probably started the statist mess that now belatedly leads to state bankruptcy.