You'd think that conservatives would see it as a particular responsibility of theirs to actually conserve and retell history as it happened. Modern conservatism is all about obfuscation, prevarication and outright lying - bowdlerization being the ideal, apparently.

What comes after the denial stage?

The academic blog, Edge of the American West (http://edgeofthewest.wordpress.com) has done excellent work on this (one of the bloggers there is an expert on the New Deal). Lots of excellent graphs, too, on just how money was spent during the New Deal.

ha, ha... brit hume saying "i think." now THAT'S funny.

Is my memory at fault or back in 2002 wasn't the GOP hailing GWB as the new FDR?

They are probably trying to contaminate the emotional mental landscape of the voters. Long after we have forgotten that the attacks were ridiculous, the emotional parts of our brain will remember there was something about FDR and the new deal that makes them feel uncomfortable. And like it or not, Obama cannot help but be compared to FDR, so they are trying to emotionally taint the brand.

The right has discovered Amity Shaes whose recent book on the Depresssion made this argument. Shaes has been all over the op-ed pages lately and on T.V. too. Don't know why though: she's an English major (not a historian, not an economist) who unaccountably now has a gig as a senior scholar at the Council for Foreign Relations. Need I add that it's a bad, fundamentally flawed book that aims at revisionist history without having the requisite knowledge to revise anything.

There was a piece here a day or so ago about TPM and the lack of a conservative corollary. I honestly don't think they can remotely hope to achieve one unless they collectively realize that there are things called facts that can be researched in books and on the internet.

Fortunately for all humanity, that is an epiphany without potential.

Ok, good mythbusting, but now we have to clarify to David Gross that Wonder World (or Don't Know Much About History as he calls it) was not "from" Animal House, even if it was in it. And never let him sing again.
At least he didn't attribute it to Art Garfunkel

Sam Cooke Lives!

In Hume's and others comments, we're seeing the snarling face of what Pat Buchanan once called "Big Rock Candy Mountain" conservatism. Pat directed that charged at folks like Jack Kemp and Steve Forbes who, like communists, believe that if you could just create the right system of economic incentives...every other problem of life would be solved.

Hume and his ilk also worship the idea of this perfect, Ayn Randian society where property rights are absolute and a flawless meritocracy controls everything. The fact that such a civilization has never existed in American or anywhere else in the world matters not. They want the United States to be a nation of John Galts and if they can't get it, they'll embrace a half-assed anarchism and an adolescent nihilism toward the only country they've ever known.

Mike

There's nothing new about these attacks on FDR. After all, the Republican Party has to a large degree based its existence since say around November 1932 on its opposition to FDR and the New Deal. Remember, one of the cornerstones of contemporary conservative politics has been the de facto repeal of Social Security. All that's really changed has been the volume of those attacks on FDR.

Did Hume say that the New Deal failed to make the Depression less bad, or did he say that it failed to end it? Because the latter seems obviously true.

Unfortunately Americans don't know better, I'm afraid. What's more I don't think the republicans care if they crash the economy completely because it would crash for good under Obama's watch. People will forget how it started and not understand what could have been done to help.

Remember when the republicans shut the government down with filibusters back in the 90s? The people didn't like it. But this batch of Dems are too cowed from giving bush everything he ever asked for (almost). The Senate under reid will cave instead of making the republicans actually filibuster.

The Dems need to make it very clear that it's the republicans who are stonewalling the measures that are essential for recharging the economy.

Hume could make the case that he is being quoted out of context in that following his statement that everyone agrees the the New Deal failed he stated that "The debate is over why it failed." After that you get into a lot of quibbling about what "failed" means. The MediaMatters piece is largely focused on Krugman's arguments that Roosevelt's New Deal didn't go far enough, and Krugman, and others, have criticized Roosevelt for trying to abandon the New Deal after the 1936 elections, plunging the nation deeper into depression in 1937.

It is all pretty nuanced stuff, but in a narrow sense, Hume's statement that there is near universal agreement that the New Deal failed (as in, didn't succeed in pulling the nation out of the depression) is essentially correct. Most historians I have heard of figure it was the extreme stimulus of wartime spending that finally did the trick. But then it appears that Hume sought to avoid any real discussion as to whether the failure was because Roosevelt did too much or too little...an important point before you can draw any conclusions.

Of course the crap about "jihad against private enterprise" was way over the top, even by FAUX News standards, more in keeping with Rush Limbaugh or Anne Coulter clownishness than anything else.

I have been watching this rightwing meme grow in the media over the past few months. It's a textbook case of historical revisionism, birth and endurance of rightwing lies. "FDR's New Deal made the Depression worse and only glorious war brought the US out of it". Rinse and repeat as necessary to dupe the American citizenry.

Amity Shlaes' 2007 book, The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression

Hilarious title - "A New History" indeed.... She should have gone all-in by calling it "A Revisionist History of the Great Depression"

Republican/Corporate messaging plain and simple. It's extremely sad that they're content to attack FDR not from reasoned analysis but based on half truths and smear.

You have to think of how the brain is operated on by propoganda.

FDR, Obama, Jihad against American Values. Throw in a socialism here and there and there you have it. Perfect propoganda from the corporatocracy. The same folks that brough you the WMDs and the "Mushroom Cloud"

The only jihad I see is coming from Roger Ailes, the Republican Party and their corporate owned cohorts masquerading as Democratic centrists, and the Religious right.

Looks hopeful. So some MSCM gnomes getting some backbone lately? I hope it keeps up ...

"Americans, I hope, know better"

Not to sound like a snotty Canadian, but it took you guys two elections before you figured out the GOP was bad news, and even then, 25% still rabidly support Bush.

If you hadn't elected Obama, I wouldn't trust you to cut my grass and not screw it up.

For a while now, right wing has been trying to create an iconography around Ronald Reagan as a counter-balanced to FDR. What apologists like Hume and Will refuse to admit is that George W. Bush enacted policies that were perfectly in line with Reagan's ideology and they proved to be an epic disaster for the country.

The only way for the wing-nuts to continue to hold up Ronnie as their icon is by fooling the country into thinking that a return to policies closer to FDR's would be even worse for the country than what George W. Bush did.

Whether all aspects of the New Deal worked as hoped is a fair question. What is without doubt is that without social security, deposit insurance and expansive authority for the Federal Reserve, the economic problems we have now would be significantly worse. I also would like to add the creation of the SEC to this list but it is hollow now. Ditto the Federal Reserve. Query -- would today's problems have occurred if the SEC and Fed been operating as the the New Dealers intended?

Did no conservatives go to school in America? I know our history books are flawed in many ways but the overriding opinion/history I learned in US History during my Junior year of High School was that FDR saved our economy at the very least and likely saved America itself from Facism or worse. Sirota's columns have been a godsend in debunking this revisionist crap.

I'm always fascinated by this argument and here's why, it's a bit of a stretch but bear with me.

Since, oh, September 12, 2001, there has often been a neocon caterwaul over just HOW MUCH WORSE the events of 9/11 would've been if that big ol' liberal pantywaist Jennifer of a touchy-feely do-gooder Al Gore had been President. Why, instead of going to war with Iraq, which was the ONLY right thing to do (lalalala not listening to any "Iraq was not the enemey" meme), Al Gore probably would've wanted a national group hug! And we would've talked about our FEELINGS, and just hand bin Laden the keys to the White House.

Of course, no matter how I or any of you feel about that fantasy scenario (starting with "Uh, if a President Gore got a memo saying 'bin Laden poised to attack the United States' he would've DONE something about it BEFORE 9/11. and he would've kept the fight in Afghanistan where bin Laden was, and he wouldn't have gotten us sidetracked in Iraq to settle a personal score and try to co-opt the oil fields") the honest truth is we don't know what Gore would've done, and it's a f***ing stupid strawman circle jerk to appease your base by assuming the other guy would've handled it worse.

Well, when it comes to this New Deal revisionism, the honest truth is the War did a hell of a lot to get us out of the Depression. Could the New Deal, on its own, saved us? Personally, I think it would've, the hiccup of the recession was a harsh lesson, but one I think FDR learned from and, like Krugman suggest, would've expanded the New Deal. The GOP can clutch their lace doilies and scream "Socialism" all they want, but once we were attacked and so much of the means of production became geared towards the war effort, that was about as close as you could get to socialism without actually being socialism. A few capitalists at the top profited greatly, and Uncle Sam didn't pay the workers out of his pocket directly, but for the rank-and-file in America, everything was humming along towards the common goal of defeating the enemy, and the government was pretty much Customer #1. Taxes were paying for goods and services for the war effort, and your salary was taxed so more monies could go into the war effort you were helping to build or maintain.

So because of the War, we'll never absolutely know what the New Deal could've accomplished on its own, how it would continue to be finessed, how long it would've taken to get us out of the Depression (if at all). But it's also an exercise in f***ing futility to argue that it's a failure.

But that IS what the GOP is all about, isn't it? F***ing futility? They see the very real potential of becoming a regional party for a generation. They see themselves out of the White House for nigh on two decades, like when FDR was running the show. Obviously Obama can't run for 4 terms, but that doesn't mean a Dem won't win in 2012, 2016, 2020 and beyond. The GOP can't argue that their theories are better, clearly they're not. All they can do is argue that the left's are worse and hope enough rank-and-file will be scared enough to go back to the Republican fold. We've all heard the stories of Republicans who never voted for a Dem voting for Obama, and the GOP hopes that after 4 years, they'll come back to the devil they know and stop flirting with the devil they don't. And that's all they have, in lieu of actual policies and plans to improve our nation. Here's hoping we as a people are never that stupid again.

FDR "waged what could ONLY be called a jihad against private enterprise" (caps mine)???? These people are insane. Or suffering from some other kind of mental deterioration. (Or maybe they're that crazy in all the things they do? Only their loved ones know.) My understanding is that the reason the New Deal faltered after 1937 was because FDR was persuaded to let up on his policies, not because he pushed them in the first place.

I lived through the Great Depression, most of it in a Hooverville, and if FDR did nothing more than raise our spirits, provide a few WPA paychecks, and send a couple of uncles to CCC camps, it was more than what those Republican shitbums did.

They are badmouthing Obama because he reminds people of FDR, only possibly more radical, and they're scared. This could be the long night of the GOP, another twenty years of political liberalism in ascension. They've got good reason to be scared.

The prolefeed is always going to make such claims. "FDR was a failure. Historians have always agreed to this. There has never been a doubt."

Modern "conservatism" may have been born in 1964, but came of age in 1984. Which means it is now entering early senility, but that's beside the point.

Steve: Thanks for the Krugman link--I missed that important piece. I am noticing that many are now debating' Obama's last speech re: the economy.

I sure hope as stated earlier that the majority are ready and willing to push through his package, because it seems clear that too much stalling is not about wanting to get it right, but rather more about wanting to "BE RIGHT".

The only part that does admittedly have me nervous is the discussion of reducing entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. But I don't honestly know enough of Economics to say what this would mean if acted upon.

'For the times they are A-Changin'. (Google this and you'll find some cool newer versions with Obama pictured).
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Sure wish we could have good old Bob Dylan or someone sing that one at the Obama Inauguration.
The song has not since been more timely.

The next thing you know Brit Hume will be saying George Bush laid the foundation for Obama's success.

Not to sound like a snotty Canadian, but it took you guys two elections before you figured out the GOP was bad news, and even then, 25% still rabidly support Bush.

And not to sound like a snotty American, but you guys elected a conservative twit after knowing how bad Bush was. Maybe you shouldn't be throwing stones from your, um, glass country.

It wasn't that long ago that Republicans, including the Flightsuit-in-Chief, were railing against "revisionist history."
Being a Republican means that you must time-stamp your principles.

Why does the right bother?

If you hadn't noticed, they pick a talking point and stick to it, no matter what the evidence. Eventually, enough of their target audience buys into it, because it is easier to go with the flow than do your own critical thinking.

I would suggest that our current economic crisis is itself a way to discredit FDR. It stands to reason that if you dismantle all the safeguards the FDR and the New Dealers put in place to prevent or at least ameliorate another depression - as we have spent the last 28 years doing - one foreseeable result would be... another depression.

But onsome level I think our friends on the right would welcome another depression, because this time market forces will bail us out - just like they would have last time if only Franklin D. Rosenfeld hadn't interfered with his jewcommiesocialist New Deal. This time around, the government will be powerless courtesy of the very deliberate Republican deficit, and only market forces will be available to save the day. Then FDR will be retroactively discredited once and for all.

(No, I don't think they planned a depression. More like they don't think it's that big a deal if one happens. Cause it'll fix itself, you know.)

It cannot be overstated just how much our reactionary friends are reacting to FDR. They've spent a generation making sure the next FDR will be hamstrung. Even if his name turns out to be Obama...

"Why does the right bother?" - Mr. Benen

If it can be shown that good things can happen when gov't is well run and that programs can be effective and that fairness amongst the citizens can be enhanced, then it's less likely that folks will feel like shrinking gov't so small that it can be drowned in a bathtub is a great idea.

For the gov't haters/corporation lovers on the right, that's blasphemy and anything that can besmirch a strong/effective and engaged gov't scenario is the only way to go.

Grover Norquist has an FDR doll that he sticks pins in. Once you know that, there's no more mystery.

buddy66 said it in a much more interesting and nice way, but the historical amnesia the GOP hopes to affect with this preposterous canard is a pathetic attempt at a CYA and an opening salvo for the grinding battle ahead.

Keynesian economics has worked, most spectacularly DURING World War II when our government spent without restraint, and will work again. The GOP's last and only hope for political relevance in the next 20 years is to trick people into believing the opposite.

It's transparent. And needs constant countering.

I'm not going to speak for Hume or most Beltway Conservatives because their views on FDR keep spinning depending on the zeitgeist. Remember, Reagan never repudiated the fact he voted for FDR and many neocons have had nothing but priase for the man over the years. Its interesting now that they're returning to their Taftian roots.

One can safely say the New Deal didn't make things worse and probably prevented the takeover of the radical left or right in this country whether it was Huey Long or William Foster. But it did not end the Depression, not by a long shot. World War II did that.

Perhaps you on the left should read the critiques of those populists and leftists who were critical of the New Deal as soon as it became clear by the mid to late 30s that it was becoming a tool of big business and big labor to regimentilize society. Study up on your Phil LaFollette, on John Flynn, Garret Garrett, William K. Borah, William Lemke, Fr. Coughlin, Burton K. Wheeler and others who weren't Randians but saw how the New Deal laid the foudnations of the corporate bailouts of today. Maybe you'll get a better perspective as to why people of that day and age like Orwell feared totalitarianism of top-down economic and political systems like Fascism, Communism, the mostly benign New Deal.

As Phil LaFollette said "Men can still have work and be free."

Why does the right bother?

MBunge at 2:06 PM is right. The primary purpose of the Republican party today is to implement the rules for the Libertarian/Randian utopia. They use all the same nonviolent tactics of the Communist Party which Republicans have studied so closely during the Cold War. The conservative utopia is no more realistic than the Marxist one Communism attempted for force down people's throats. Of course, when the people got resistant the leaders used violence and oppression to force even harder. The problem for conservatives is that the philosophy is perfect, so any failures means those implementing it are insufficiently aggressive.

To respond to SteinL at 1:44 PM the conservatives are completely disinterested in history as a source of learning what has happened, what works and what does not. They see history as a tool to manipulate the masses to give them to power, just as Lenin did. That's the source of this historical revisionism. History is always a tool to use to create and maintain a tyranny. Look at the way Slobodan Milosevic used Serbian history to inflame Serbians against their neighbors, the Croats and the Muslims.

The conservatives are just activists pushing another utopia, with no recognition of what has happened to every single prior attempt to create a Utopian society based on some philosophy. All such attempt have failed because they are unworkable. Which won't stop the conservatives, because their watchword is "It's 'common sense.' Of course it'll work."

Right now the revision of commonly accepted history on FDR is necessary to defeat the Obama stimulus program[s]. It will be to their benefit because they can go into the next election, tell the voters Obama has failed, and get the the voters to return them to power. That's just common sense.

By the way, this is just one side of the Republican Party. The economic conservatives are allied with the Evangelical Dominionists who want to take power and create a so-called "Christian nation" in which the laws are derived from the Bible. (Consider Huckabee and Palin, for example. Apparently, Katherine Harris shared a religious guru with Sarah Palin, too.) The social conservatives have their own ideal utopia to create. The administrative system would be the same as that used in Iran, where the Mullah's determine who can and cannot run for office and all law would conform to Biblical teachings. But the Dominionist utopia is not something that can be used to convince most Americans to elect conservatives and Republicans.

The problem for Democrats is that they don't have a clear, central vision that the party works to achieve. That makes counter propaganda more difficult - and allows Blue Dog Democrats in the caucus. Instead, most Democratic politicians spend their time and energy trying to govern rather than focusing everything on vaulting their party to power the way the conservatives do.

The right wing knows that free market capitalism is on the ropes and activist government is making a comeback. So the only way to derail the "New" New Deal that will undo everything conservatives have built since Reagan is to somehow prove that the Old New Deal was a flop. They must also push the lie that the meltdown on Wall Street wasn't the fault of the free market itself, but of the very government that liberals are turning to in this crisis.

Shales' the Forgotten Man is a very quirky book. It is understandable why it is so popular in conservative circles since with so many historical similarities between 2008 and 1929, and with conventional wisdom calling for a new New Deal, Shales book is about the only one out there that gives an alternative view of history by providing an argument against assuming that the New Deal was a success.

But there are many problems with it. First, for a book that attempts to swim against the tide and offer revisionist, critical view of the New Deal, Shales book is pretty thin, coming in at under 400 pages. That would not be so bad in itself, but it does reflect my major criticism that time and time she seems to asserts criticisms of the New Deal or FDR without spending the time to argue them out. I was constantly frustrated by the fact that she would make a bold, almost ad hominem criticism of FDR but then not follow it up. For example: Maybe the TVA did destroy $700 million in shareholder equity of investors in Commonwealth and Southern. But so what? Why is that a bad thing in the larger scheme of things if the residents in the Tennessee Valley got cheap power as a result, and maybe were able to create new jobs and economies as a result. Did the positive impact of cheap public power offset the loss in private equity? What criteria should we use for balancing these two interests. What values are at stake.

Shales really doesn’t say, she just assumes her readers (mostly subscribers to the Wall Street Journal I would suspect) would be horrified to learn that $700 million in equity was put at risk by the government, and leave it at that.

Second, out of 15 chapters in her book Shales devotes one to Mellon’s art philanthropy and another to a boat trip that a bunch of future New Deal intellectuals took to visit Stalin in 1928. When there were so many other things about the Great Depression to write about I can only assume she devoted two valuable chapters to these odd selections in order to leave the impression that Wall Street fat cats like the much-maligned Mellon were really swell guys and FDR’s brain trust was just a bunch of commie traitors.

Finally, I had to admire her slight of hand at the beginning of her story in her treatment of Hoover. The Hoover who has come down to us from history is an orthodox conservative who stood on ceremony, refused to abandon laissez faire and fiddled while the country sank into depression. Yet, since Shales main argument is that government action itself caused the depression by getting in the way of capitalism’s natural recuperative powers, and since the depression did start on Hoover’s watch, she had to perform something of an extreme makeover by transforming Hoover from an antagonist of New Deal activism into one of its more enthusiastic proponents. It seemed just a little too convenient for her own hands-off brand of capitalism to put the discredited Hoover into FDR's camp.

Shales offers a provocative alternative view of the New Deal at a time when we are again turning to New Deal activism. But her treatment of the New Deal and of FDR seemed a little too much like the Wall Street Journal editorials she once wrote -- designed for the capitalist choir not the rest of us who are skeptical about an unfettered free market.

Except, of course, that Hume is absolutely correct. Not only did the Depression worsen under our first socialist president (imagine that - a failed socialist regime) but we only came out of it with the advent of WW2.

But hey, that's alright - you leftists can continue with your fantasies.

The right has been repeating similar nonsense for a couple of months now.

The right's been repeating similar nonsense pretty consistently, even if no one was paying attention until recently, at least as far back as the Reagan Administration (not counting that they argued the same thing when Roosevelt was President.)

Except, of course, that Hume is absolutely correct.

No, he's not. At least not in the reality 99% of the world inhabits.

But that's okay -- reality has never stopped you wingnuts before. Why should it start doing so now that you all have been proven unfit to govern?

Not only did the Depression worsen under our first socialist president (imagine that - a failed socialist regime) but we only came out of it with the advent of WW2.

The 1929 recession ended in March of 1933; the subsequent expansion through 1937 failed to bring employment up to a good level, but reduced unemployment considerably (IIRC, to around 15%) from the 25% it had reached in the 1929-1933 recession. The shorter 1937-1938 recession was a setback, but even that didn't make things as bad as they had been in the 1929-1933 recession, and in 1938 the economy returned to growth. It is, flatly, false to say that the Depression "got worse" under Roosevelt.

Its true that civilian unemployment didn't get back under 10% until into WWII, when mobilization both drastically reduced the civilian labor force and provided a whole bunch of new jobs, but since that was additional de facto fiscal stimulus, all it really says is that the problem prior to that point, as far as employment went, was too little fiscal stimulus, not too much.

I am getting more disappointed with conservatives as they stoop to defining themselves by their opponents. You can oppose some things without opposing everything.
I am a social conservative and a fiscal pragmatist. So far I think Obama has cast himself as a perfect Bush III, on both foreign and domestic issues.
This FDR stint feels like the conservative pundits have just decided the masses really are the brainless NASCAR mullets that snooty libs have been wrinkling at all these years.

I saw one of the right-wing hack columnists claim in an op-ed last week that Hoover's and FDR's mistakes are what led us into The Great Depression. When I showed it to my 86yo dad who actually REMEMBERS what transpired back then, he just laughed in disbelief .... but I puked.

"So because of the War, we'll never absolutely know what the New Deal could've accomplished on its own, how it would continue to be finessed, how long it would've taken to get us out of the Depression (if at all). But it's also an exercise in f***ing futility to argue that it's a failure."

One problem with American political and economic analysis is that it tends to be so provincial. The US actually is not the only country in the world. Lots of other countries went through the great depression, and they responded to it in various ways with differing results.

The US spent a bit over two years under Hoover trying to balance its budget and cut its way to prosperity. It economy tanked until FDR switched to a policy of stimulus then immediately improved. It faded when that stimulus policy was abruptly cut back in 1936, and recovered when the stimulus was resumed.

Sweden started a large deficit funded stimulus program right away and was one of the quickest to recover after a briefer and shallower slump than other nations.

France followed a balanced budget hoover approach and did badly. A long and deep recession ensued.

England was one of the few nations with a social safety net at the time (an unemployment insurance program), and maintained that while attempting to isolate itself from the world market and trade mostly with its colonies. It was also in an long economic slump before the depression started. It's experience was kind of middle of the road. Better than France, worse than Sweden.

Italy seems to have followed completely incoherent and contradictory policies and did rather badly. It sort of did stimulus and hoover style actions at the same time and switched rapidly between the two.

Germany, I think, might be too much of a special case in its post WWI situation to be a very useful comparison, but for whatever it is worth Hitler took power in 1933 and began a very aggressive spending program in various areas and its economy responded very well. This could be argued to be another "success" for war... at least as long as you don't pay attention to what happened next.

Sean, you make some good points. At the moment the right-wingers are so far wrong that they have to be opposed. It doesn't make the left wing the perfect answer.

One thing that recently occurred to me after Krugman's recent editorial pointing out that all 50-states have balanced budgets written into their Constitutions and cannot do deficit spending the way the federal government does. That means that the stimulus activities that will be operated by the states are funded by the federal government.

If someone really wanted to shift American government power sharply to Washington and reduce the states to the administrative equivalent of counties within a state, that is sure one major step in that direction. Get the public used to the things provided by the federal government, starve the states for revenue, and you have centralized America sharply.

California, with their current budget crisis, no-new-taxes and mandatory 2/3rds vote to pass a budget is likely to be a test case. Suppose the feds offered some help on condition that they raise taxes and pass a budget on their own?

As I say, it's just a thought. But it's only important if you believe strongly in federalism.

This re-writing of history is frustrating and a tad scary. Reminiscent of Orwell and the present regime in China. But, they must feel they can get away with it. The generation that remembers the depression, and Roosevelt's success, is gradually dying, and the rest of America has the attention span and knowlege base of gerbils. One could point out that Roosevelt was elected four times, so the electorate at the time must have thought he was doing something right. Republican vindictiveness created Presidential term limits, and could be blamed for the current mess we are in. I am pretty sure that Bill Clinton would have been re-elected, Monica notwithstanding,had there been no term limits, and we wouldn't have the economic mess, or the war in Iraq, possibly no 9/11 as well

"I'd feel a whole lot better if there wasn't an organized campaign from conservatives trying to convince Americans to reject the lifesaver while the nation drowns."

No kidding! Isn't a war like WW2 just a example of massive government spending? Doesn't the argument that WW2 lifted us out of the depression support the argument that more government spending on infrastructure will stimulate the economy better than less government spending, thank you, Mr. Keynes? As other commenters point out, the New Deal didn't fail; it made slow but steady progress...no doubt this slow progress was because conservatives would not allow spending on the New Deal to be as large as it needed to be to produce the kind of rapid economic stimulus that WW2 produced.

So in the end, it comes down to the fact that Conservatives love war and are willing to support massive government spending to wage wars but will resist all other kinds of government spending because they are so blinded by their ideology that they cannot comprehend that government spending is government spending whether the spending is on wars or bridges.

One thing that recently occurred to me after Krugman's recent editorial pointing out that all 50-states have balanced budgets written into their Constitutions and cannot do deficit spending the way the federal government does.

Note that most states can do deficit spending, but they have go through laborious processes to issue bonds (often requiring putting bond issues on a public, statewide ballot), which makes it more difficult and slower, preventing the kind of flexibility the feds have.

Also, while federal securities are perceived as nearly risk free, and the cost of federal borrowing tends to drop in economic crises (even as revenues fall and spending climbs) as a shelter against the increased risk perceived in the private investment market, state debt, for various reasons, is treated more like private debt and when state revenues fall in an economic crises, the cost of state borrowing goes up.

Which is to say, even if state governments didn't have procedural barriers to borrowing, it makes some sense to have the federal government borrow in recessions and transfer funds to the states rather than for states to attempt to borrow the same quantities themselves.

Suppose the feds offered some help on condition that they raise taxes and pass a budget on their own?

Raising taxes would, like cutting state spending, counteract federal stimulus efforts. Why would the federal government want to demand counterproductive measures on the parts of the states?

The book jacket bio:

"Amity Shlaes is a senior fellow in economic history at the Council on Foreign Relations and a syndicated columnist at Bloomberg. She has written for The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal, where she was an editorial board member, as well as for The New Yorker, Fortune, National Review, The New Republic, and Foreign Affairs. Shlaes is the author of The Greedy Hand. She lives in New York."

Not a hint of anything to do with training in the academic disciplines of history or economics. Nothing to indicate that she could be admitted to a decent graduate program. Just a list of who paid her once and who she knows--not that you'd get this far, having seen the log-rollers and glad-handers whose blurbs line the back cover--but if someone with a CV this thin was the grad assistant teaching their kid's freshman history survey, said touts would be on the phone to the department chair threatening hell and death.

FDR is a creature of partisanship. Either ya love him or ya hate him.

Either ya love wah like Franklin and Eleanor loved wah, or ya hate wah.

Ya like a Supreme Court as a check, or ya think FDR was merely cutting red tape in packing the Supreme Court.

Ya respect G. Washington for setting the precedent of two terms, or ya don't.

Economists cherry pick data to suit their bias, so there is no reliable consensus on the effect of the New Deal on the depression.

FDR did do some important things to alleviate the worst symptoms of the Depression. His push to save and regulate the banking system was wise and his support of Wall Street regulation was sound. However, his make work projects and massive government intervention were effective for only so long. By 1937 manufacturing was down, the stock market was down, and unemployment was way up, again. Only the orders for military equipment and supplies (both from Europe and our own rearmnament) got things humming in 1938-39.

Plus, calling Hoover a "failed President" who handed the crisis to our savior FDR and the huge Democrat majorities in Congress, allows the Democrats to skate away free after refusing to work with Hoover after the mid-term elections of 1930 which returned Dem majorities in Congress. The Dems felt that it was better to let things get worse to enhance their chances in the 1932 presidential election.

Please tell me if this is accurate:

FDR 1932 = 8 years depression, over 14% unemployment throughout, indoctrination of generations of schoolchildren in New Deal propaganda, and cementing a dependent class (voting bloc) that lasts to this day.

Reagan 1980 = 2 years recession, 20 million new jobs, across the board tax cuts of 25% (lowering the highest rate from 70% to 28%), and an economic expansion that lasted 25 years (highest sustained growth in the history of human-beans).

brace yourselves.