Thursday, March 31, 2011
FDR Unplugged
"I regard reduction in Federal spending as one of the most important issues of this campaign. In my opinion it is the most direct and effective contribution that Government can make to business. It is necessary to eliminate from Federal budget-making during this emergency all new items except such as relate to direct relief of unemployment......I hope that it will not be necessary to increase the present scale of taxes."......Franklin Delano Roosevelt 1932.......If, folks, after reading this, you still think that FDR was NOT a typical politician, then, man, oh man, I really don't know what to tell you. Me, personally, I'll take good old "Give 'em hell" Harry any day.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
16 comments:
Will I have to admit I'm sort of lost on that one. While politics never really changes FDR lived in a whole different world back then.
I'm all for balancing the budget but not on the backs of the poor and soon to be poor with corporation-people owning the government and it acting only in their favor.
I probably should have given more in terms of back-drop in this one. FDR early on had been campaigning on providing a lot of new government programs. It was only when his numbers started dipping that he started in with this budget-cutting stuff and, yes, by the end he was saying different things to different groups of people. I'm not saying that the country would have been better off with another 4 years of Hoover necessarily. I'm just pointing out that, as a pure political animal, FDR wasn't all that significantly different from the others.
You're not saying the country would have been better off with another 4 years of Hoover NECESSARILY?
Who knows, maybe Hoovernomics would have been able to turn the econony around, if only given 4 more years to work.
LOL!
Are you one of those people who believe FDR prolonged the Great Depression?
If so, that would be worthy of another LOL.
Are you seriously asking me for yet another yes-no answer? Dude, come on. Are you not at least a little weary of them?
Yeah, that would certainly be Laughable
and Ridiculous
No self respecting UCLA economist would believe that for a min....
Hey!!!
Hey Volt. I had a feeling that you'd show up and "flank me" here.......FDR and the New Deal, one of your very favorite subjects, correct? LOL
Yeah Will, I'm a big fan of the Raw Deal...
I'm not a Hoover fan either btw,
His crime in socialist eyes was he didn't spend enough, but spend he did. FDR made him look like a pauper.
Still, Hoover wouldn't have done as much damage to this country as FDR did.
"Who knows, maybe Hoovernomics would have been able to turn the econony around, if only given 4 more years to work."
Would've been shorter than FDR's 12+ wouldn't it?
Actually, I did mean to mention that Hoover is hardly the darling of true economic conservatives (a fact that I clearly learned from you and others).
So, after giving the speech that you pulled this quote from, what did FDR actually do?
I'm used to hearing politicians mouth the words -- Barack Obama talks about cutting spending all the time (including during the 2008 election) -- but very few actually back it up with their actions.
He did the exact opposite, HR. He was bullshitting, just like every other politician.
Will said... Actually, I did mean to mention that Hoover is hardly the darling of true economic conservatives (a fact that I clearly learned from you and others).
It appears to me that Hoover IS the darling of the Tea Partiers in Congress. If Voltron told you that isn't the case I'd say he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. But that should be clear given the BS articles concerning the "failure" of the New Deal he linked to.
FDR wasn't bullshitting Will. That was his position at the time. It was Frances Perkins, his labor secretary, who was responsible for much of the New Deal.
The tea party doesn't know Jack about American history, wd. You know that!! Hoover was anything but a hands-off President (and, yes, the reason why principled conservatives aren't particularly fond of him).This from a previous post: In terms of the real record, President Hoover did a number of things that he and his administration clearly hoped would turn the economy around. 1) He set up the National Business Survey Conference and, in so doing, sought to obtain pledges from businesses to maintain wages/undertake new investment. 2) He set up a new division in the Commerce Department to speed up federal construction projects (yes, Ms. Maddow, that's synonymous with, hello!, INFRASTRUCTURE, something that you claimed to have liked in the past). 3) He pushed through a temporary tax reduction. 4) He worked with Congress to increase, by 400 million (yes, believe it or not, a lot of money for 1930), public works expenditures. 5) He established a Federal Farm Board that offered to farmers low interest loans and a promise to purchase grains if prices fell. 6) He signed the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill. And, 7) he established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation - this, in an attempt to stabilize the banking system........................................................................................Now, clearly, one could argue whether all or any of these measures were effective (the Smoot-Hawley bill, especially) or not. But, to imply, as the increasingly shrewder Ms. Maddow apparently was, that President Hoover was twiddling his thumbs back then - that is complete and utter bunk! Hopefully, the woman'll show some integrity and make a correction here. Not that I'll be holding my breath, of course.
And, yes, wd, FDR gave a crap-load of inconsistent speeches (in 1932). On the one hand, he was hammering home his underconsumption theory (replete, of course, with promises of massive government assistance). And on the other he was giving folks this balancing the budget schpeel. Thankfully for him, Mr. Hoover was so discredited by that point (understandably), that the public evidently didn't seem to care.
Why, in both of your comments do you address ME, but then go on to discuss points I didn't raise? It sounds like you think you're answering questions I asked or rebutting claims I made...
I didn't say anything about Rachel Maddow. I didn't say anything about FDR's speeches.
BTW I noticed you put up another post which mentions FDR in the title. Is this going to be another 7 part series? Appartently you feel the need to tear down Democratic politicans but Republicans you mostly defend. Or at least your "attacks" on them are extremely weak.
Post a Comment