So, How Extreme WAS FDR's New Deal?

FDR's New Deal was so extreme that a plethora of FDR's own supporters started turning on him. Get a load of these quotes - "Roosevelt's measures only retarded enterprise at a time when the relief of unemployment and of insolvency primarily depended upon the revival of enterprise.....a lack of intellectual effort, the work of tired brains, relying on their wishes and their prejudices, and throwing out casual suggestions which they are just too hot and bothered to think about." Walter Lippman............."The whole conception behind the tax bill (the President's 1935 tax increases) overlooks the fundamental fact that there is little point trying to redistribute wealth as long as there is nothing done to produce more than a fraction of the wealth we are equipped to create." The New Republic............."the wonder that one man could have been so flexible as to permit himself to believe so many things in so short a time. But to look upon these policies as the result of a unified plan was to believe that the accumulation of stuffed snakes, baseball pictures, school flags, old tennis shoes, carpenter's tools, geometry books, and chemistry sets in a boy's bedroom could have been put there by an interior decorator." Raymond Moley............."We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong...somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. … And an enormous debt to boot." Henry Morgenthau............."We are entering upon waters for which I have no charts and in which I therefore feel myself an utterly incompetent pilot." James Warburg............."an arraignment of class against class.....these young Brain Trusters have caught the socialists swimming and run away with their clothes." Al Smith..........................................................................................Look, I'm not exactly sure where the sweet-spot is in terms of economics (I suspect that it's probably somewhere between Reagan's supply-side and Obama's demand-push) but I'm pretty sure that it doesn't include massive regulatory measures, major tax increases, significantly higher labor costs, and endless rhetorical spit-balls aimed at American business. Roosevelt dying and Truman ascending - that's what truly got us out of the depression, people, the difference between 'em being night and day.