Right-Washing the New Deal
This column also appeared in the San Jose Mercury News, Myrtle
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Tribune, and Youngstown
Vindicator.
It's probably a good thing that cable news generally doesn't draw much of an audience from the 18- to 24-year-old demographic. Otherwise, history professors across the nation could very well be witnessing the undoing of their work to educate students about the dire economic climate the United States faced for much of the 1930s.
Those who have been watching cable news lately have undoubtedly noticed the litany of conservative media figures attempting to rewrite history by denigrating the tremendous successes of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal policies in what amounts to an orchestrated effort to derail the economic recovery plans of President Obama.
Fox News Washington managing editor Brit Hume recently called Roosevelt's policies "a jihad against private enterprise," just after claiming that "everybody agrees, I think, on both sides of the spectrum now, that the New Deal failed." That may be accurate if by "both sides of the spectrum" Hume is referring to the right and far-right over at Fox News.
Hume's own jihad against the facts, however, represents only a small portion of the historical misrepresentations passed off as reasoned debate about the New Deal.
Witness the day-break machinations of the crew over at MSNBC's Morning Joe. During a recent broadcast, Joe Scarborough and co-host Mika Brzezinski kicked off a string of attacks against the president's recovery plan, using the New Deal as their dubious weapon du jour. Mika said of Obama's plan, "I think we're going to have the same unemployment in three or four years, just like the New Deal." That just isn't true -- unemployment fell every year from 1933 through 1937.
Her buddy Joe didn't fare much better, cherry-picking data in telling viewers that unemployment was at "20 percent" in 1938, ignoring the downward trend in unemployment that occurred under the New Deal.
Joe isn't alone -- conservative columnists George Will and Mona Charen have played the same numbers game to falsely claim the New Deal failed to reduce unemployment, a contention disputed by historians and economists.
Don't take my word for it -- data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show the unemployment rate in 1933 clocking in at 24.9 percent and falling each year thereafter (to 14.3 percent in 1937) until 1938 when it rose to 19 percent. Why the increase from 1937 to 1938? As Nobel laureate Paul Krugman has noted, it was a reversal of these very same New Deal policies, which had reduced unemployment, that actually led to recession and drove the numbers back up. It's worth noting, by the way, that these numbers do not include those in federal work-relief programs (at the time, BLS counted those employed by the New Deal's emergency work programs as unemployed). So, the unemployment numbers were actually lower than reported in these years.
The strengthening of the social safety net during the 1930s stimulated the economy while also providing assistance to those waiting to feel the economic recovery for themselves. That's perhaps why Fox News' Bill O'Reilly saw fit to lambast portions of the president's plan aimed at assisting those most in need during these difficult times, claiming last week on his television show that increased funding for programs like food stamps has "nothing to do with stimulating the economy." Though his ego will never let him admit it, O'Reilly is dead wrong.
Congressional Budget Office director Douglas Elmendorf and former McCain campaign economic adviser Mark Zandi have both said that extending food stamps does, in fact, stimulate the economy. Zandi stated last year that "extending food stamps [is] the most effective [way] to prime the economy's pump," while Elmendorf noted in congressional testimony just last week that "[t]ransfers to persons (for example, unemployment insurance and nutrition assistance) would also have a significant impact on GDP."
Faced with the prospect that history will again demonstrate that government spending and investment are important tools in confronting an economic crisis, it is now clear that conservatives are engaged in a misinformation campaign to mislead the public.
So, when radio host Rush Limbaugh, whom former President Ronald Reagan reportedly called the "Number one voice for conservatism" and House Republicans named an honorary member of Congress in 1994, recently said of Obama, "I hope he fails," it makes one wonder if he might not be speaking for all of his pals on the right.
If Limbaugh and conservatives truly want the president to "fail," rewriting the history of the New Deal may very well be the first salvo in a long war to defeat Obama's agenda for America.
Karl Frisch is a senior fellow at Media Matters for America, a progressive media watchdog, research, and information center based in Washington, D.C. Frisch also contributes to County Fair, a media blog featuring links to progressive media criticism from around the web as well as original commentary. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook or sign-up to receive his columns by email.
Helping your fellow Americans is not a repuglican trait.
They also lie about the facts, as:
"Why the increase from 1937 to 1938?"
One of the big reason why the numbers went up in 1937-8 was this:
http://millercenter.org/scripps/archive/speeches/detail/3312
In November 1937 there was an informal, ad hoc voluntary "unemployment census" run through the mail. People filled out their own postcards, and it included part time unemployment.
One can only imaging the results of such a popular census nowadays.
-- is $800 billion in new government deficit spending worthwhile? --
Here's a good read both pro and con concerning that question...for those interested in examing both sides of the argument.
It has lots of great links to the depression era policies of FDR.
Great link, the repug Cato institute.
Wesley..... the CATO institute?... You cite the fricken CATO institute as a way to show some kind of a middle ground in examining the New Deal and FDR??
What are you..... crazy or something?
Why not use the Heritage Foundation or PNAC... I'm sure you'd get as much 'middle' of the road crap from them as well.
Considering the two sides talking about the New Deal and today's Obama's Reinvestment and Jobs creation bill.... I'll take the words of Paul Krugman or Mr Frisch here over any schlump over at FoxNoise, CNN, MSNBC (with the two exceptions being KO and RM) or the three main networks any day of the week and three times on Sunday!!
CATO institute indeed.... good god man!
It's like saying the American Enterprise Institute has produced some great ideas about Iraq...and Iran. ;>)
Folks at AEI actually advised the Bush AGAINST invading Iraq. It's the Heritage Foundation that was all for it. It's discussed in the book Assassin's Gate.
You really think Cato provides a balanced view of ANYTHING???
Right wing pundits today must feel terribly emboldened and powerful. In the dumbed-down, anti-intellectual atmosphere the right wing has created these pundits can say whatever they like, regardless how baseless or ridiculous it may be. On the rare chance they are challenged then they accuse the challenger of being part of the liberal media elite. How many FOX viewers are there today who now believe, as a matter of gospel truth and without dispute, that FDR's New Deal was a left-wing socialist failure? Give FOX another couple of years before they start saying "Everyone agrees that George W. Bush's policies saved the world from Islamic terrorism." Oh, wait...I think some are already saying that.
As it has been pointed out before, they have invested decades and hundreds of millions of dollars building their Misinformation Machine, and discrediting objective News coverage. Now is when it pays off.
They have also successfully propagated the myth that cutting taxes is the only stimulus that works. On Meet the Press yesterday, the Republican toadies were on message. They repeated their mantra several times when praising tax cuts..."John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan and after the Towers Fell on 9/11 "
They have no shame.
IRONY , You are soooooo right in that last post
Can't the Republicans just be honest, and tell the American People what they really stand for? They are, in essence, Social Darwinists, at least when it comes to the working class.
They're all for corporate welfare, and sops to those already drowning in wealth, but they insist that the little guy must be "self reliant". For evidence, just compare their opposite reactions to the proposed bailouts of Detroit versus Wall Street.
When bailing out the auto makers was considered, Republicans insisted that the union workers MUST take pay cuts, or it was no deal. Now that Obama is proposing that bailed-out Bank CEOs be forced to temporarily squeak by on $500,000, the same Republicans are simply appalled.
Republicans have been chafing under the surviving New Deal policies for decades, and apparently won't rest until they've managed to reverse them.
"Can't the Republicans just be honest, and tell the American People what they really stand for? They are, in essence, Social Darwinists, at least when it comes to the working class."
Thom Hartmann... well, several progressive/liberal talkers said about these corporate raiders/whores that they are big time in love with socialism... as long as the socialism socialize the losses at our expense, but privatize the profits so that they can run 'dooh nibor' (<---- read right to left and consider the name and what he stood for and as typed... reverse his way to that of these clowns today!) policies!
If the REPUBLICANS were honest about what they really stood for, about 80% of the AMERICAN PEOPLE would run away from them at warp speed.
Funny how we don't hear much from the mainstream media -- and certainly from conservative commentators (although I do recall a skeptical mention on FOX News a few months ago) -- about how Wall Street and the U.S. economy have historically performed better under the policies and leadership of Democratic administrations than they have under those of Republicans.
The dept. of commerce and the census bureau both state the unemployment rate never went below 20% during the new deal. The normal rate 1970-2008 is 5.5%
I read History and Roosevelt's secretary of treasury, Henry Morganthau is quoted as saying We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I say after eight years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started. And enormous debt to boot. What do you make of that?
While I realize that Morganthau is now one of the most popular figures in conservative talk circles these days, he made those remarks in 1939, two years AFTER Roosevelt, spurred on by the deficit hawks of the day, decreased gov't spending and increased taxes, and, in the process, reversed the 1933-1937 trend of increased spending, reduced unemployment and increased GDP.
Thankyou! It's so dishonest to take quotes to prove a point and not place them in context!
Ha! That's what Media Matters does on a daily basis!
I'd say, whats your source and the context.
"What do you make of that?"
That you probably don't understand what you read! Of course if you could offer up a link that proves this assumption, which if you do and it is from the Commerce Dept or the Census Bureau and not from some rightwing thinktank with its own interpretations, then I will say I'm wrong and you are correct, otherwise......
Of course... the Commerce Dept was run by a group of corporate idelogs for the last 8 years... so any information would likely have to be pre-Bush days or its likely as useful as a hole in the heart.
If you read above, the people who were working on government jobs weren't counted in the statistics. which means that they were kept artificially high. In reality, it was probably below 20%.
The New Deal may have created jobs, but low-paying New Era Deal jobs is not what the 1930's economy needs or what we need in this new century. What we need is wealth, which is never created by government spending. Allow banks to fail, allow the system to reset. It will be better to take a beating now, than to print money 24/7 to pay for these bailouts and stimulus packages (not to mention borrow from foreign countries), and destroy the currency in the process.
MM posters and bloggers can talk about jobs all they want, but government jobs do not stimulate the economy. That is because it either takes higher taxes (not happening) or it takes deficit spending (to the tune of $10 trillion) to CREATE government jobs. Deficit spending will be the death of this country. It is basic logic, guys, wake up and see that King George has just been replaced by King Obama.
Do you have anything of value to say, or are you just going to troll my posts?
Clownbaby(your name is appropiate)what do you think the "People" will be doing while we allow this economy to reset? RESET!? Government jobs do not stimulate the economy!?!? Says you! People with jobs buy things, people without them faced with starvation and poverty look for answers and a better system, and it won't be to look for more tax-cuts or a government that doesn't support them. You buck every respected economist with your reset BS, to do nothing would mean disaster. It's funny how you tout basic logic as if your post showed any. The financial and credit sectors are frozen, they must be unlocked or stimulated to do nothing would mean the death and break-up of this nation as we know it with all the instability in the nation and the world that would follow. The consequences would be disasterous for us and the world.
I never realized it would be so easy. Now, if the Republicans would just call Obama and tell him where that "Reset" button is, we could all go shopping.
Yea, funny isn't! The thing is THEIR SERIOUS!?!?! RESET button?!?!?!The government doesn't create jobs!?!?! This is a spending bill ?!?!?! BLAH blah blah!?!?! Meanwhile people are hurting and suffering, demonstrations are not far away.
Government spending does not stimulate the economy, because government jobs do not create actual wealth. They do keep people employed, which is one of the major premises of the blog here and of MM in general (so far as I can see). I affirm this premise: government jobs keep people EMPLOYED. However, that does not create wealth and real capital because we are running $10 trillion on the debt and we're destroying the dollar in the process. What we need is real wealth and capital in the system. Just because you can buy goods with your low-paying government job does not mean that this is the fix for the economy in the long run.
What is creating instability in the market is this hubristic attitude that we can spend however much we want, either in a phony War on Terror or in a phony attempt to save the economy, with no consequences. You've sited the credit markets being frozen, which is a serious problem, though there is little more the government can do. You can't cut rates any lower. Though if we keep running up this debt with no regard for the future, who is going to lend the U.S. money anymore? What happens when China says "yeah, good luck with all of that, we're not helping you anymore, pay up." Logically, there is a point where foreign governments cannot lend to the U.S. anymore. There isn't an infinite amount of wealth. Can't you see how this is a problem?
In terms of "bucking every respected economist," there are plenty of economists out there that agree with me that are very credible. Google Peter Schiff, the Mises Institute, etc. Just because people disagree with you does not take away from their respectability. Peter Schiff was on this issue years ago, and has provided incredible insight into the issues.
Please, show me where I am wrong.
"Building wealth" is a nice thing. Really, it is. But in terms of a short term fix for people who are quite desperate, or who will be soon, "the fix for the economy in the long run" is nothing but an abstract point. Unfortunately, this is not an academic exercise.
Clownbaby,
You should have just used clown. What are you talking about with this wealth creation crap.
You have no clue what actually drives this and every other economy, do you? It's consumer spending you dolt. Wealth does nothing, Wealth creates more wealth for the wealthy.
Do a little research and tell me how much the top 5% of wage earners contribute to GDP and how much the bottom 95% contribute?
Then come back and tell me that we need to "create" wealth. That's how we got here in the first place, Wall Street was "creating" wealth where it didn't exist.
You really need to have your head examined.
Skeptical,
"Wealth does nothing. Wealth creates more wealth for the wealthy."
Please, say that to anybody who has worked for someone else. You need wealth to hire people. How many people work for someone making 40k a year on a government salary? Consumer spending does not create wealth always, because most of the stuff we buy here in the U.S. is made somewhere else, it is quite counter-productive to "stimulating" the economy to just say "consumer spending is a good thing" and be done with it. It is good, so long as we have the manufacturing and goods-based industries to provide American goods, and so long as we're not borrowing this money with no intention of paying it back. American debt is out of control, on the micro and macro levels.
Thanks for calling me a dolt and a clown. That's the kind of behaviour I expect out of the neo-con crowd. I am "Clownbaby," not a baby dressed like a clown, nor a clown dressed as a baby. Simply, Clownbaby.
Consumer spending does not create wealth always, because most of the stuff we buy here in the U.S. is made somewhere else
I guess that's why Wal-Mart's been going broke for so long.
Read what I said. I said that it does not create wealth ALWAYS. Some times it does, and Wal-Mart is an example.
It looked like you were using the example of foreign-made goods as a reason why consumer spending didn't "create wealth" ( the word "because" led me to think you were citing a cause & effect here).
WalMart sells a hell of a lot of imported items, and the Walton family is very wealthy.
What was your point? That every time somebody spends a dollar, it doesn't make another person a millionaire? Well done.
Neo-Con? You are way dumber than I first thought! You need wealth to hire people? Why are you stuck on this word wealth? Have you been listening to Rush lately?
Clownboobie, plenty of non-wealthy business owners hire people. Consumer Spending is the only thing that creates wealth.
I agree that we need to bring back the manufacturing base and reduce our debt, but neither of things can happen until the economy is stabilized. You actually made a logical statement there. I'll take back the Clownboobie name if you can continue that way.
Depends on what you mean by wealthy. Let's try to clarify that. What I mean by wealth is capital that is made in the private sector that can be useful to a certain degree. A local store owner has a degree of wealth to hire 10 people, a larger company 100, and so on. However, to create these jobs which can be sustained, you need a sustainable line of capital, which is hindered permanently by taxes and deficit spending.
Why do you assume I listen to Rush? For the record, neo-con radio turns my stomach, because they are so wrong on the WoT, torture, defense spending, etc.
It does create wealth. When you put people back to work, they create demand for goods and services. The private sector then hires more people to meet the demand and those employees create even more demand. The whole process should snowball.
Do you know how much a construction worker or an engineer makes?
China will never do that.
So China has an unlimited amount of credit they're willing to lend us? Where did they get that from, as well as their unlimited trust in the U.S. government? This is the kind of economic hubris that will end up destroying us economically in the long run.
To your first comment, it sounds reasonable at first but it falls apart. The gov't jobs are paid by taxes and inflationary, deficit spending. When you say the new gov't workers will need services and goods, that's true, but these businesses will also be harmed by the taxes and inflationary deficit spending that CREATED those gov't jobs. So this is sure to stagnate, it will not grow or stimulate the economy in any meaningful way.
How will taxes and "deficit spending" hurt those businesses?
What do you think taxes are? They are a fee paid by citizens in return for government services. Nothing more, nothing less. They are not inherently evil.
It is no different than people paying fees to the private sector for services. Sometimes you get your money's worth; sometimes you don't.
If we fail, they fail.
More jobs equals more tax revenue.
Businesses are not harmed by taxes. If consumer demand is high, they'll invest and hire more people. Conversely, if consumer demand is low, they won't invest and they'll get rid of workers.
I can name 4 government jobs that stimulate the economy. Will you admit you're wrong and apologize for lying the moment I post them?
I'm not lying. Furthermore, what would my motivation be to lie on an internet forum (especially one that is not particularly friendly to my views) with nothing to gain? It is very impolite to call someone a liar, by the way, especially when you have not presented anything of substance.
Government jobs that have stimulated the economy:
The Army
The Air Force
The Navy
The UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS!
The Coast Guard
The Border Patrol
The FBI
The CIA
The Dept. of Homeland Security
The Police force
The Firefighters
That's just a few. Now, as I said, how about apologizing for lying?
No apology necessary, these jobs do not stimulate the economy because they require taxpayer money to fund them. They employ people, but employment is not in conjunction with stimulus. Now, whether that be from actual tax money (which is the case on the local and state level), or from deficit spending by way of borrowing or printing money (which is the primary method of paying for federal jobs), it doesn't matter. Regardless of how necessary these jobs are, they aren't ones that generate capital in order to be employed in the larger economy, which is what real stimulus is.
And you called me a liar again. Good work.
That's ridiculous. You are trying to redefine words to mean what you say they do, just like Humpty Dumpty.
If I define gravel to be corn, and then serve you cornbread and you break your teeth, it isn't my fault that you don't use the same definition that I do.
Those jobs stimulate the economy because they put people to work who quite possibly would not be working otherwise. They now have money to spend on goods and services that were not in demand before because more people didn't have money before.
You really should just change your name to Clown. Except your economic ignorance isn't funny.
I'm economically ignorant because I think government spending to the tune of $10 trillion is a BAD thing? Having jobs for the sake of having jobs is not a good thing! It comes at a cost when its on the government books, a cost we currently cannot afford by a long shot. See my comments to loonz, since you both share the same intuitions.
Keep calling me names, everyone. You're just showing your own class and maturity.
no, you're economically ignorant because that list of jobs I gave not only are proof that the government spending creates jobs, but what you miss is that they also create a whole nother level of private sector jobs. Boing? Texas Instruments? E Systems? Did you forget about that? And before you give another song and dance about how they are bought and paid for with tax dollars, let me remind you that all are publically traded on the stock market which, last I heard, was a primo method of creating "wealth".
Not to mention the fact that my husband and I get almost all our money from the government, but spend almost all of it in the private sector. I think I singlehandedly keep at least one clothing company in business.
AA wouldn't answer this; maybe you will. Do wages create wealth? If not, why not?
Can you prove that deficit spending is the primary method for paying for federal jobs?
How did the Government function under Clinton's balanced budgets?
So, if there is no deficit spending, government jobs are still not stimulative?
How so? How are these jobs different from any other service job. For example, taxpayers pool their money to pay for police protection. They are buying a service from the government. How is that any different from Richie Rich hiring a private security force, or paying for any other service.
If Government jobs do not generate capital, then neither do any service jobs.
It wouldn't be motivation so much as nature.
Where am I wrong?
"these jobs do not stimulate the economy " — Clownbaby
clownhead, I dony know where you get your ideas, but they are wacko. Ive'posted this before, Ive worked for 27 years at a private firm building jet fighters for the USAF.This is a GOVT contract or,GOVT SPENDING . I've raised 2 children ,bought a couple of houses, bought a few cars. so tell me is my job not count in your way of thinking because is was created by GOVT SPENDING.
It's not just the cable news guys. I heard a brief report this on NPR this weekend in which they played a clip of Mitch McConnell saying spending in the stimulus package was bad because the New Deal made the depression worse or something like that. The right will not rest until this is written in to the history books.
Mitch McConnell has a plaque on the wall in his Senate conference room from the Kentucky Department of Education, praising him for "Excellance in Education."
My guess is their history education is probably as good as their spelling education.
Brit Hume has cited a book by Amity Shlaes to support his claim that FDR "waged a jihad against private enterprise." But is this what her book claims? Does she agree with Hume? I do not know.
I would want to know why FDR went after some butchers in New York. And I would want to know why, if FDR was so against private enterprise, he was elected president of the United States four times.
The history books I have read say FDR saved private enterprise -- as he intended to do.