More government = less freedom + less prosperity
Pretty basic.
Pretty simple.
Always true.
FDR's jobs program and all it's "great things" came at the cost of an extended depression.
I agree that if the government is going to give people money, they should work for it.
But the idea of using tax dollars to "stimulate" an economy on the backs of people who are already working....is stupid.
Additionally, my experience was that those stimulus dollars didn't make a difference. Where they were spent, they were spent poorly (people knew that in many cases they were helping to build roads to nowhere).
But moving on:
How FDR's New Deal Harmed Millions of Poor People | Cato Institute
The most important source of New Deal revenue were excise taxes levied on alcoholic beverages, cigarettes, matches, candy, chewing gum, margarine, fruit juice, soft drinks, cars, tires (including tires on wheelchairs), telephone calls, movie tickets, playing cards, electricity, radios — these and many other everyday things were subject to New Deal excise taxes, which meant that the New Deal was substantially financed by the middle class and poor people. Yes, to hear FDR’s “Fireside Chats,” one had to pay FDR excise taxes for a radio and electricity! A Treasury Department report acknowledged that excise taxes “often fell disproportionately on the less affluent.”
Until 1937, New Deal revenue from excise taxes exceeded the combined revenue from both personal income taxes and corporate income taxes. It wasn’t until 1942, in the midst of World War II, that income taxes exceeded excise taxes for the first time under FDR. Consumers had less money to spend, and employers had less money for growth and jobs.
Less political liberty
Less financial liberty
Less individual liberty
Of course more and ever expanding government is detrimental to all, but the power elite and their friends.
How is it possible all Americans do not know this simple truth?
...in the Age of Ignorance (aka Age of Progressive BS), simple truths are easily disposed of.
During the Great Depression conservatives raised objections to F.D.R.’s programs. They said the economy must be left alone and it would correct itself in the long run. Commerce Secretary Harry Hopkins shot back: “People don’t eat in the long run. They eat every day.”
The true "ignorance" is to 'simplify', without any attempt to understand the situation FDR faced when he took office. Doing nothing was NOT an option, economically, politically or on ANY human scale.
A humane government is in the best interests of We, the People. A nation is measured by how the people are doing, not by doctrinaire.
I have been around since Truman was President, so I have witnessed the drastic changes in my country brought about by the conservative era that followed the liberal era that ran from the New Deal through the Great Society. The conservative era has been a disaster for all but the very wealthy. Conservatives have built nothing.
Honestly, I see today's conservatives being no different from communists in Russia...where strict doctrinaire trumps humane government, where ideology has reached the level of insanity. History has proven that a mixed economy outperforms those run on strict doctrinaire, be it communism or Laissez faire.
Here is what FDR faced when he was inaugurated March 4, 1933:
From 1929 to 1933, unemployment in the U.S. increased from 4% to 25%, and manufacturing output decreased by one third. Prices fell by 20%, causing a deflation which made the repayments of debts much harder. The mining, lumber, construction, and farming sectors were hit especially hard, along with railroads and heavy industries such as steel and automobiles.
The Great Depression had devastated the nation. As Roosevelt took the oath of office at noon on March 4, 1933, the state governors had closed every bank in the nation; no one could cash a check or get at their savings. The unemployment rate was 25% and higher in major industrial and mining centers. Farm income had fallen by over 50% since 1929. 844,000 nonfarm mortgages had been foreclosed, 1930–33, out of five million in all. Political and business leaders feared revolution and anarchy. Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr., who remained wealthy during the Depression, stated years later that "in those days I felt and said I would be willing to part with half of what I had if I could be sure of keeping, under law and order, the other half."
Roosevelt entered office without a specific set of plans for dealing with the Great Depression; so he improvised as Congress listened to a very wide variety of voices. The "First New Deal" (1933–34) encompassed the proposals offered by a wide spectrum of groups. (Not included was the Socialist Party, whose influence was all but destroyed.) This first phase of the New Deal was also characterized by fiscal conservatism (see Economy Act, below) and experimentation with several different, sometimes contradictory, cures for economic ills. The consequences were uneven. Some programs, especially the National Recovery Administration (NRA) and the silver program, have been widely seen as failures. Other programs lasted about a decade; some became permanent. The economy shot upward, with FDR's first term marking one of the fastest periods of GDP growth in history. However a downturn in 1937–38 raised questions about just how successful the policies were, with the great majority of economists and historians agreeing they were an overall benefit.
The New Deal policies drew from many different ideas proposed earlier in the 20th century. Assistant Attorney General Thurman Arnold led efforts that hearkened back to an anti-monopoly tradition rooted in American politics by figures such as Andrew Jackson and Thomas Jefferson. Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, an influential adviser to many New Dealers, argued that "bigness" (referring, presumably, to corporations) was a negative economic force, producing waste and inefficiency. However, the anti-monopoly group never had a major impact on New Deal policy. Other leaders such as Hugh Johnson of the NRA took ideas from the Woodrow Wilson Administration, advocating techniques used to mobilize the economy for World War I. They brought ideas and experience from the government controls and spending of 1917–18. Other New Deal planners revived experiments suggested in the 1920s, such as the TVA.
Among Roosevelt's more famous advisers was an informal "Brain Trust": a group that tended to view pragmatic government intervention in the economy positively. Donald Richberg, the second head of the NRA, said "A nationally planned economy is the only salvation of our present situation and the only hope for the future."
The New Deal faced some vocal conservative opposition. The first organized opposition in 1934 came from the American Liberty League led by conservative Democrats such as 1924 and 1928 presidential candidates John W. Davis and Al Smith. There was also a large but loosely affiliated group of New Deal opponents, who are commonly called the Old Right. This group included politicians, intellectuals, writers, and newspaper editors of various philosophical persuasions including classical liberals and conservatives, both Democrats and Republicans.
Read more:
New Deal - Knowledge Encyclopedia
like shootin' fish in a barrell
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