Reply #16: Actually, not ... [View All]

[RoyGBiv]

Let me be clear that I am a great admirer of FDR, so this is not a criticism.

The New Deal on which FDR ran for President fixed nothing. It barely made a dent. Part of that was because of opposition he faced to, then, radical ideas such as the TVA, etc., preventing them from being implemented to their full potential, and part was because the problems were so deep seeded in the structure of the American and world economies that no quick fix was actually possible. On the last point, the Great Depression was a global depression. "Fixing it" in one place did not fix it elsewhere, which prevented it from being fixed at home. Furthermore, there were in fact several so-called "New Deals." One of FDR's great strengths was that he was not so beholden to his own ideas that he was unwilling to recognize when those ideas needed modification or complete reversal. He basically tried anything and everything he could and opened up the floor to anyone who had even the slightest hint of an idea to help, which unfortunately is how he ended up being involved with some rather unsavory characters at some points in his tenure.

What FDR did do was put in place a system with the intended effect of preventing what had happened in the late 20's from ever happening again, i.e. banking reform, agricultural reform, the social safety net, expansive educational programs, etc. -- all things Republicans have spent the last 20 years dismantling. Once the world economy had recovered from the economic collapse of the 1920's, during and in the wake of WWII, these measures fueled a renewed vigor to the economy and hastened recovery, but they did not ignite the recovery itself.