Beaver County Peace Links– 12/23/11

“Unemployment in 1933: 24.9%

“Unemployment in 1937: 14.3%

“Unemployment in 1938: 19%

“Unemployment in 1942: 5%”

[RWC] Mr. Hayden (formerly Mr. “Hanoi Jane” Fonda) omitted several years.  According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), unemployment for 1934, 1935, 1936, 1939, 1940, and 1941 was 21.7%, 20.1%, 17.0%, 17.2%, 14.6% and 9.9%, respectively.  Though the U.S. didn’t enter World War II until December 8, 1941 (the day after the Pearl Harbor attack), we sold arms to our eventual allies starting in 1939.  Those sales likely contributed to the unemployment drops from 1939 through 1941.

“These statistics from the Historical Statistics of the United States clearly show that the New Deal dramatically lessened joblessness from Roosevelt’s election in 1932 until his second term; then began to climb when FDR retreated to a more conservative path; then finally ended because of war spending in World War 2.”

[RWC] Mr. Hayden told us “the New Deal dramatically lessened joblessness from Roosevelt’s election” but provided no analysis to support his conclusion.  Just because two things happen at the same time doesn’t mean one causes the other.  Indeed, Henry Morgenthau, FDR’s Treasury Secretary during the Great Depression, had a different opinion than Mr. Hayden.  Testifying before the House Ways and Means Committee in May 1939, Secretary Morgenthau said, “We have tried spending money.  We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work.  And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong … somebody else can have my job.  I want to see this country prosperous.  I want to see people get a job.  I want to see people get enough to eat.  We have never made good on our promises … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started … And an enormous debt to boot.”

Let’s compare what happened for two recessions.  We already know what happened after the recession beginning in 1929/1930; we got the Great Depression.

Now, let’s look at a recession most of us never heard about, the depression/recession of 1920-1921 [the last year of the Woodrow Wilson (a Progressive Democrat) administration].  Most of us learned about the “The Roaring Twenties,” however.  So how did we get from a depression/recession to “The Roaring Twenties?”  Presidents Warren G. Harding (R) and Calvin Coolidge (R) must have jacked up spending, taxes, and debt, right?  Not even close.  Let’s use 1920 (the first year after World War I) as a base.  In contrast to Hoover/FDR/Obama-type “stimulus” policies/programs, the Harding/Coolidge administrations reduced spending 55% by 1927, reduced taxes 45% by 1925, and ran eight straight surpluses.  According to the BLS, unemployment for 1923-1929 averaged 3.3%.  Now you know why lefties like to brush over the 1920s; comparing the principles employed to address these recessions and the historical record tends to make Progressive tactics look bad, really bad.  As I wrote above, though, just because two things happen at the same time doesn’t mean one causes the other. 

“Sensing the return of a structure crisis, Roosevelt proposed an ‘economic bill of rights’ in his 1944 State of the Union address.  Roosevelt died and his proposed domestic agenda was subordinated to seventy years of Cold War military spending.[see the fine history by Obama adviser Cass Sunstein, The Second Bill of Rights, FDR’s Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need It More Than Ever, 2004.]”

[RWC] By “Obama adviser,” Mr. Hayden means Mr. Sunstein is the Administration’s regulatory “czar” (aka Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, part of the Office of Management and Budget).

For a piece entitled “Jobs and FDR’s ‘Economic Bill of Rights’,” isn’t it strange Mr. Hayden provided no details about “FDR’s ‘Economic Bill of Rights’?”

“Needless to say, spending on spies and electronic battlefields in the Long War on Terrorism will not resolve our unemployment crisis, and sending hundreds of thousands of Americans into ground wars is not an option.”

[RWC] Wow, Mr. Hayden and I agree on something.  That said, I don’t know anyone who would disagree with this comment.  I suspect Mr. Hayden simply attacked a straw man of his own construction.

“Civilian economic development – investment in green jobs, infrastructure, education, health care, tax credits for job creation – is the only path to a full employment economy.”