Dick Morris celebrates opposite day, fails Depression era-World War II quiz
Appearing on The O'Reilly Factor, Fox News' Dick Morris claimed that as president, Franklin Roosevelt's "largely conservative course" helped lower unemployment, suggested that "a new depression came on the country" because Roosevelt abandoned course, and claimed that Roosevelt "was only re-elected because there was a war on." In fact, numerous economists have said that it was a retreat from progressive economic principles that led to a recession in 1937, and Morris' claim regarding Roosevelt's 1940 re-election is undermined by the fact that it occurred more than one year before the United States entered World War II.
Morris: Roosevelt's "conservative course" helped lower unemployment during Great Depression; reversal in policy caused recession
Morris claims FDR's "largely conservative course" lowered unemployment until, he suggested, FDR gave up and "a new depression came on the country." During his Fox News appearance, Morris claimed, "In Franklin Roosevelt's first term, he really tried to solve the Great Depression, and followed a largely conservative course. And he lowered the unemployment from 23 down to 13. Then in his second term, he figured, you know, I'm not going to get it below 13. And a new depression came on the country. It went back up to 21. And he realized that he was not going to be able to solve the economy."
Economists say opposite: FDR's "conservative course" reversed economic progress during Great Depression
Krugman: Roosevelt "eager to return to conservative budget principles ... precipitating an economic relapse that drove the unemployment rate back into double digits." In a November 10, 2008, New York Times column, Nobel economist Paul Krugman criticized "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," and stated:
The New Deal brought real relief to most Americans.
That said, F.D.R. did not, in fact, manage to engineer a full economic recovery during his first two terms. This failure is often cited as evidence against Keynesian economics, which says that increased public spending can get a stalled economy moving. But the definitive study of fiscal policy in the '30s, by the M.I.T. economist E. Cary Brown, reached a very different conclusion: fiscal stimulus was unsuccessful "not because it does not work, but because it was not tried."
This may seem hard to believe. The New Deal famously placed millions of Americans on the public payroll via the Works Progress Administration and the Civilian Conservation Corps. To this day we drive on W.P.A.-built roads and send our children to W.P.A.-built schools. Didn't all these public works amount to a major fiscal stimulus?
Well, it wasn't as major as you might think. The effects of federal public works spending were largely offset by other factors, notably a large tax increase, enacted by Herbert Hoover, whose full effects weren't felt until his successor took office. Also, expansionary policy at the federal level was undercut by spending cuts and tax increases at the state and local level.
And F.D.R. 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. [New York Times, 11/10/08]
Baker: FDR "worried about the whining of the anti-stimulus crowd ... when the proper goal of fiscal policy should have been large deficits to stimulate the economy." In a January 6 column, Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, wrote: "In reality, any careful reading showed that the New Deal policies substantially ameliorated the effects of the Great Depression for tens of millions of people. The major economic failing of the New Deal was that President Roosevelt was not prepared to push the policies as far as necessary to fully lift the economy out of the Great Depression." Baker continued:
Roosevelt was too worried about the whining of the anti-stimulus crowd that he confronted. He remained concerned about balancing the budget when the proper goal of fiscal policy should have been large deficits to stimulate the economy. Roosevelt's policies substantially reduced the unemployment rate from the 25 percent peak when he first took office, but they did not get the unemployment rate back into single digits. [Alternet.org, 1/6/09]
DeLong: "[M]ore 'orthodox' economic policies" and attempt "to move the budget toward balance ... provide ample explanation of that downturn." In a November 17 post on his personal blog, University of California-Berkeley economics professor Brad DeLong wrote, "Private investment recovered in a very healthy fashion as Roosevelt's New Deal policies took effect. The interruption of the Roosevelt Recovery in 1937-1938 is, I think, wel [sic] understood: Roosevelt's decision to adopt more 'orthodox' economic policies and try to move the budget toward balance and the Federal Reserve's decision to contract the money supply by raising bank reserve requirements provide ample explanation of that downturn."
Morris undeterred by time: FDR's 1940 re-election was "only because" of World War II
Morris claims FDR "got re-elected only because there was a war going on." Morris claimed that Roosevelt "got clobbered in the '38 congressional election and got re-elected only because there was a war going on."
FDR re-elected: November 1940. In the 1940 election, Franklin Roosevelt defeated Republican Wendell Willkie with 449 electoral votes and 54.7 percent of the popular vote. [UC Santa Barbara American Presidency Project]
U.S. enters World War II: 1941. The United States declared war on Japan December 8, 1941, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor; the United States declared war on Germany December 11, 1941 -- a full year after Roosevelt won his second re-election.
Transcript
From the October 21 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:
MORRIS: Now, Afghanistan -- not going well; economy -- 10 percent unemployment; health care -- still chaotic. He doesn't have any accomplishments in nine months. There are no accomplishments. Am I wrong?
MORRIS: No, you're -- well, he passed the stimulus bill --
O'REILLY: What are the accomplishments?
MORRIS: -- that screwed up the federal budget.
O'REILLY: Yeah, there's no accomplishments yet.
MORRIS: He doubled -- tripled the deficit. Does that count?
O'REILLY: So rather than expending all of this energy and all the currency and all the time on cultivating the left-wingers, attacking Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, whoever it may be, why not try to solve one of these problems?
MORRIS: Let me -- let me give you -- let me go back in history a little bit. In Franklin Roosevelt's first term, he really tried to solve the Great Depression and followed a largely conservative course. And he lowered the unemployment from 23 down to 13.
Then in his second term, he figured, you know, I'm not going to get it below 13. And a new depression came on the country. It went back up to 21. And he realized that he was not going to be able to solve the economy.
So what he did was embark on a strategy of attacking his enemies. I quote him: "The economic royalists hate me, and I welcome their hatred. The economic royalists have met their master." Those are quotes.
And he went after locking in the elderly, the labor unions, Jews, blacks, labor union members, on a class warfare kind of a basis, because he knew he couldn't do it based on the achievements of the administration.
He got clobbered in the '38 congressional election and got re-elected only because there was a war going on.
Obama is essentially following that trajectory. He's given up on the notion of lowering the unemployment rate significantly. He doesn't think he can do that. He probably can't do it. Come down maybe a little by '12. Certainly not by '10. And he knows he's in a mess in Afghanistan and he can't get out. He wants to pass his legislative program, and he wants to cultivate a do-or-die solidarity among the Democratic Party that resists all enemies and is a one-party government. It's the Harold Ickes method of governing that he brought to the Clinton administration.
O'REILLY: All right, Dick Morris, everybody. I think that's pretty interesting. I really do.
It's obvious Mr. Morris is a little slow & is not quite Aware.
It's incredibly hard to focus when your mind is on Street Whores.
In a Man's mind Sex will always Prevail & he'll work later on Political Scores.
Speak truth to power.
Mr. News
When he was hired by Fox News i assume his "Predilections" were never actually Tested?
Because of this Andrea Mackris paid the ultimate Price.
Her Dignity was attacked not by a Man but something more resembling Mice.
Speak truth to power.
Mr. News
Is it because they are "Brothers in Arms" are these two guys of the same Character?
Perversion may be a Shared Experience Here?
Any Woman within their reach may need to run for their lives in Fear.
Speak truth to power.
Mr. News
I appreciate mary59 or juliajayne's skills a bit more.
It appears that the latter is true of almost all "conservative" talk show hosts and (at least) Congressional Republicans. That many of the latter would also fail economic history quizzes is undoubtedly true also.
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FOX is more than an 'enemy of the state.' It's a enemy of REALITY.
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:)
Well since he couldn't get the whole Malmedy massacre thing correct, how could know to correct Morris? ;)
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LOL
Probably because he'd be gone in three questions...
By 1933, business failures had risen almost 50% from the end of 1928 (109 to 154 per hundred thousand). From 1933 to 1935, only two years they dropped to almost 40% from the 1928 levels (62 to 109 per thousand). Unemployment rose from 3% in 1929 to 25% in 1933. From 1933 through 1937 unemployment dropped 44% to 14%. This figure did not include over 2 million workers employed by the WPA. As to the Gross National Product, by 1933 it had dropped from $103.6 billion in 1929 to $56.4 billion in 1933. This represented a loss of 44% of the total goods and services of the country in 3 years. In FDR’s first administration it rose approximately 64% to $92 billion. By 1940, with defense spending still only 22 % of the federal budget (from 1928 through 1932, defense spending represented an average of 38% of the US Budget), and 2% of the GNP, the GNP had risen to $101.4 billion or 4% higher than 1928! Because of the New Deal, hourly wages which had dropped from 58 cents per hour in 1928 to 49 cents for hour in 1933 (a drop of approximately 25%) rose 74 cents per hour in 1940. This represented a strong recovery of 28% from 1928. These figures are undeniable.
FDR took bold decisive action in the Hundred Days, and fifteen pieces of major legislation passed. The hemorrhaging of the banking crisis ceased, stability was brought back to the market places, and the NRA which came out of the National Recovery Act was the first of many regulatory efforts which would eventually include, the SEC, the AAA, the CCC, the PWA and the WPA.
The "right wing" of this country always seems to trash the rights of the many for the rights of the few, by hiding behind "original intent." Again the Framers had no understanding of the modern world that would come about. As Franklin Roosevelt said, "out of this modern civilization, economic royalists carved new dynasties...The royalists of the economic order have conceded that political freedom was the business of the Government, but they have maintained that economic slavery was nobody's business." (FDR’s speech accepting re-nomination to the Presidency, June 27, 1936.)
Also in his Second Inaugural, the late President said, "The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." (Second Inaugural, January 20, 1937)
Little really has changed in the minds of many of the old and new critics of the New Deal. But, did we go back to unrestricted capitalism, and therefore trash the SEC, NASD, and the Securities Laws of 1933, 1934, and 1940, wages and hours, child labor laws and the like? No, thankfully! Should we go back to the great enduring capitalistic legacy of the "Triangle Shirt-Waste Fire?" Or maybe we should trash the reform legacy of Ida Tarbel, Upton Sinclair, Sinclair Lewis, and others who revealed to the public the abuses of private capital and power. Meanwhile how many judges did the "economic royalists" own? How many of them came from the bosom of private capitalism and the world of property? (Thankfully Holmes, Brandeis, and Cardozo didn't!)
In truth the short and sharp recession of 1937 was caused by a tightening of the Fed, pressure by the new coalition of that day, the Dixiecrats and the GOP and a hope by FDR that the government could ease off the spending throttle. When this happened there was a sharp reversal in the economy, jobs were suddenly lost by the millions, and FDR immediately "primed the pump" with government fiscal interaction. The Depression was so grave that any real recovery probably needed the hundreds of billions that was spent on WWII. But the fiscal conservatives of that day were only concerned with their greed and the fact that they were paying high taxes. Has it changed today? Yes, the rich are paying historically low taxes thanks to the giveaways authored by Reagan and the Bush twins and the deficits are larger. We are now hearing the bleating from the TARP dependent companies and their PR machine that want billions in bonuses even though their jobs, their IRAs and their stock was saved by a federal bailout! How arrogant and hypocritical. They are threatening to leave for greener pastures! Where? Let them leave their jobs, there will be other talented folk to take their places.
Dick Morris, like other flacks hired by the Fox Noise Network have a very large platform to spout their propaganda. They appeal to the flat-earth thinkers, the greed merchants and the lunatic right, who suck up their tripe. The crash of 2008 was caused by greed, de-regulation, and naked abuse of power. They came close to bringing their whole house of cards crashing down. Now with a reasonable period of stabilization they want to go back to the same old practices that brought on this last toxic bubble. Will we ever learn?
Richard J. Garfunkel
Host of The Advocates
WVOX 1460 AM Radio
New Rochelle, NY
http:advocates-wvox.com
Randy
There was a war going on in 1940. The U.S. was providing materiel to it, and many people (prior to Dec 7, 1941) wanted to enter it. Others wanted to leave Europe to itself. But, in general, voters were concerned about the war.
I love MMFA but I hold everyone to the same standards.
P.S. Bush only got re-elected because there was a war going on.
FDR promised that the USA wouldn't get involved in a foreign war in order to help his re-election efforts against NY Gov Thomas Dewey.
However, MMFA did explicitly state that there was no war going on in 1940, which is wholly inaccurate...there was a HUGE war going on. Just because it didn't happen to/in America, doesn't mean that it didn't happen. That's a time-tested GOP ostrich-defense.
I thought this site and its fans were for accuracy in the media, so I thought I might correct that major factual error underlying the premise of this story.
Further, many people that voted for FDR's 3rd term did, in fact, vote for him because of the war...that they didn't want to get involved in. Is it impossible for the modern American to consider that some people might have voted based on events happening outside US borders? Particularly German-Americans, which are the plurality ethnicity in the United States?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1940
Here's an excerpt from the title paragraph:
The United States presidential election of 1940 was fought in the shadow of World War II....
The surprise Republican candidate...was [eager] for war.
Roosevelt, aware of strong isolationist sentiment in the U.S., promised there would be no foreign wars if he were reelected.
Whether or not there was a war going on in 1940 is not a matter of what you believe. It is a matter of undisputed fact.
Not even Holocaust deniers would dispute it. Not Lou Dobbs. Not even Orly Taitz. Nor even Glenn Beck [the expert on Hitler, Jews, fascism, and WW II]. (Strike those three if there is money or fame or ratings involved).
And this:
Nowhere in here does MMfA deny that WWII was happening in Europe or the South Pacific. They merely state a fact that the USA was not a direct participant in the war. Morris's mischaracterization stands...unless you think Morris is cosmopolitan enough to even consider a war in Europe as a war on America by proxy, ergo prevalent in the minds of the electorate circa 1940. While I may cop to this, Morris certainly isn't sophisticated enough to incorporate the world in his thinking. So please, let history speak for itself. Morris is a serial liar and revisionist of history. This instance is no different.
Randy
Morris always has this "did I really say that that outloud" look to him when he looks at the camera, like he is waiting for the camera to nod, or wink in approval.