Republicans’ Latest Talking Point: The New Deal Failed

[groovedaddy]

On Christmas Eve, the conservative pundit Monica Crowley argued on Fox News that instead of rescuing America from the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt’s spending on public works made it worse. She insisted that this bizarre claim was confirmed by “all kinds of studies and academic work.”

The show’s host backed her up. “Yes,” said Gregg Jarrett, “I think historians pretty much agree on that.” In the same vein, a recent Wall Street Journal opinion piece said F.D.R. helped turn “a panic into the worst depression of modern times.” Now, as Congress begins to debate President-elect Barack Obama’s ambitious economic stimulus plan, this anti-New Deal talking point is popping up all over.

Conservatives have railed against the New Deal from the start. In 1934, H. L. Mencken was already decrying it as “a saturnalia of expropriation and waste.” When F.D.R. ran for re-election in 1936, a headline in William Randolph Hearst’s newspapers insisted that “Moscow Backs Roosevelt.”

But Americans were not fooled. They knew F.D.R. was on their side in a way that Herbert Hoover and his fellow free-marketers hadn’t been. They could see first-hand the good that Roosevelt’s jobs programs were doing for the Depression’s victims and the slow but unmistakable improvements in the economy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/12/opinion/12mon4.html?th&emc=th

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Dems' new Talking Point: The Bush Era Failed. Reagonomics Failed.

[duhneece]

7. yes, yes, yes

I like your responses very very much

[wolfgangmo]

11. Buy a clue bucko

Those are not new talking points. They have been around since before Saint Ronny took office and proceeded to drive the country into the ditch.

[Turbineguy]

2. It did fail

It could have been like the Irish potato famine. Now That was a success!

[groovedaddy]

10. For Population Control? n.t

[Turbineguy]

16. A lot more poor people would have died

As it was, many died but not from starvation.

I would say that the Irish Potato Famine was as close to a Republican Paradise as you can get.

[muntrv]

3. Repuke economic policies failed.

[KansDem]

4. They *still* can't believe Obama won...

Reaganism is dead...
"Trickle Down" economics is dead...
The "free market" is dead...
The new welfare kings and queens are Wall Streeters and the bankers...
Neo-conservatism is dead...
Republicanism is on life support...

But we will still hear the kind of pap Fox News pundits spew.

[Avalux]

5. Republicans hate FDR, Democrats, Liberals, SS, Medicare, the Middle Class....

...I could go on and on. There will be no reform in the Republican Party; they will continue to hate and lie (all they know how to do) and try their best to rewrite history. Pathetic.

[BridgeTheGap]

6. Yeah, sure. FDR's biggest problem? HE HAD A HEART!!! It's why the rich

hated him so much. He stood up for every day people.

[fasttense]

8. The only thing that is saving this current economy are FDR initiated policies.

What if they had done away with the FDIC? There would have been tens of thousands of runs on banks. You and the millionaires would not have any money right now.

What if they had done away with Social Security? All those poor elderly would be digging out of trash cans right now.

According to The Nation's recent article by Robert Borosage and Eric Lotke, A New New Deal. The new deal worked and dramatically reduced unemployment until FDR got a bit nervous about the US debt and raised taxes on the middle class and cut spending in 1937 which sent the economy into a tailspin until WWII spending began.

Why do repukes think FDR kept getting voted back into office until his death?

[sinkingfeeling]

9. My 90 year-old mother would like very much to debate those on Faux News about this issue.

[4dsc]

12. Thomas Sowell gives truth about the Great Depression and today

Here's the right's reasoning on this subject...

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell122308.php3

[Fearless]

13. Yes CLEARLY we didn't get out of the depression.

Just be careful. They may start saying that WWII helped. It's dangerous because it did. Don't let them make the allusion to the war in Iraq. Our armed forces are set up vastly differently today.

[snake in the grass]

14. saved for later...

[Enthusiast]

15. They hope when the last of

the "greatest generation" dies off history will adopt their new official wingnut version. We have to combat this rewrite of the historical facts. You can hear the wingnuts repeating this everywhere they are found, on the web, print media, the radio and TV.