Right-wing revisionist history: George Will says the New Deal didn't work.....

[marmar]

from ThinkProgress:



George Will: ‘The First New Deal Didn’t Work’»

Economists on both the left and right broadly agree that the need for stimulative government spending is necessary to prevent a further collapse of the global economic system — just as the New Deal and the deficit spending of World War II restored the health of the global economy in the last century.

This morning on ABC’s This Week, conservative columnist George Will echoed the false right-wing meme that FDR’s New Deal policies made the Depression worse:

Before we go into a new New Deal, can we just acknowledge that the first New Deal didn’t work?

Watch it: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/11/23/will-new-deal/


As Nobel-laureate Paul Krugman wrote recently in the New York Times, “There’s a whole intellectual industry, mainly operating out of right-wing think tanks, devoted to propagating the idea that F.D.R. actually made the Depression worse. So it’s important to know that most of what you hear along those lines is based on deliberate misrepresentation of the facts. The New Deal brought real relief to most Americans.”

Krugman observed that the true short-comings of the New Deal policies resulted from the fact that they were not bold enough over the short-term:

The truth is that the New Deal wasn’t as successful in the short run as it was in the long run. And the reason for F.D.R.’s limited short-run success, which almost undid his whole program, was the fact that his economic policies were too cautious. (…)

In short, Mr. Obama’s chances of leading a new New Deal depend largely on whether his short-run economic plans are sufficiently bold. Progressives can only hope that he has the necessary audacity.

Brad DeLong offers this chart to emphasize the value of the New Deal: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/11/23/will-new-deal/

[saltpoint]

1. George Will can go suck a doorknob.

The New Deal worked for many, many people. My own family tree included.

The GOP and far-Right pundits are pumping this anti-FDR / anti-New Deal meme at exactly the time another such program is urgently needed.

Obama has won this argument before it has even begun.

[provis99]

4. George Will can suck a scuffed, used doorknob.

He's been irrelevant since Bush '41. I can't figure out why he even gets tv airtime. He's William Buckley without any brains or class.

[saltpoint]

9. As to your proposed amendments of "scuffed" and "used,"

I'm very cool with both.

Perhaps it might even be a latrine doorknob, as long as we're offering modifications.

[Ishoutandscream2]

2. George Will better be glad my grandpa is dead

Grandpa would have kicked his ass. FDR was a God to my grandpa.

[mucifer]

3. The only thing that is gonna work is giving more money to rich people and screw the poor.

don't you guys know anything? :sarcasm:

[pnwmom]

20. self-delete

[democracy1st]

5. 2 many dayum conservatives on Sunday morning

[BlooInBloo]

6. It's funny when people keep talking after getting completely pwned....

And continuing on hoping that no-one will notice how bad the carnage was.

[ben_meyers]

7. You may want to read the entire Krugman article

And FDR wasn't just reluctant to pursue an all-out fiscal expansion - he was eager to return to conservative budget principles. That eagerness almost destroyed his legacy. After winning a smashing election victory in 1936, the Roosevelt administration cut spending and raised taxes, precipitating an economic relapse that drove the unemployment rate back into double digits and led to a major defeat in the 1938 midterm elections.

What saved the economy, and the New Deal, was the enormous public works project known as World War II, which finally provided a fiscal stimulus adequate to the economy's needs.

This history offers important lessons for the incoming administration.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/11/10/news/edkrugman.php
I happen to agree with Krugman, in fact I agreed with him before he even wrote this.

Hug your draft age children and grandchildren (male and female to age 46) and hang on for a wild ride.

[gollygee]

8. I'd never heard this before a few weeks ago

and now I keep hearing it. This is being pushed hard. The right REALLY doesn't want any money going to people who aren't already rich, and will rewrite whatever history they think will help their cause.

Thank goodness they didn't win this election.

[kiranon]

10. George Will & Sarah Palin separated at birth.

[Chulanowa]

11. Oh, this is hardly new

The New Deal didn't work
Wilson was nothing but a filthy racist
The Nazis were left-wing
Reagan rescued the hostages
Kennedy made up the story of him rescuing a half-drowned crewmate
Bush keeps us safe.


Me am good historian!

[Greyhound]

12. Not bold enough and FDR almost killed the recovery with premature tax cuts.

Yes, he did great things, but he was far from perfect.

IMO, the worst thing he did was to preserve the very institutions that brought about the downfall in the first place. He, in a "we have to look ahead" moment allowed Congress and the people to completely ignore a failed attempt by the parasites to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot">carry out a military coup. It may well have succeeded except for the actions of one of our nation's greatest heroes, http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm">Gen. Smedley Butler. Today, hardly anyone even knows this happened.

His cousin, Teddy, was a better leader and a true class traitor.

[kentuck]

13. Yes, the soup lines worked much better...

with 25% unemployment. The WPA and the CCC would not have been needed if we had only put more water in the soup...

[Dragonfli]

14. Yeah, If Only Hoover Had More Time - All would have Been Much Better

:eyes:

[suston96]

15. Got this from the FDR series on the History Channel.......Recorded this week.

When FDR took office in 1933, the unemployment rate was 25%. By 1940 - just before we entered WW II, the unemployment rate was 20%.

You decide whether the New Deal was successful.

[Kaleva]

16. It was WWII that brought the US...

out of the Great Depression. The unemployment rate in early 1941 was about 20% compared to early 1933 when it was around 25%. The New Deal staved off revolution and anarchy.

[malaise]

17. It sure worked better than anything called Reaganomics

Living standards were better and the gap between rich and poor was significantly smaller. Fuck George Will.

[ben_meyers]

19. Now who is being a revisionist?

Global economic depression, the middle class in America all but disappeared, one of the hottest decades in recorded history leading to the drought and dust bowl, winds of war in Europe and the far east and you bring up Reagan? Unfortunately George Will is closer to the truth than you may want to believe.

[Captain Hilts]

18. FDR saw the Depression, first, as a political crisis. Then as an economic one.

Yeah!