It's Ironic you bring up FDR. His polices not only didn't turn the economy around, but actually sunk it. In fact, FDR is a perfect example of how government CAN NOT stimulate the economy.
You are consistant... consistently wrong Far Right Wing smear merchant.
I was sure the Depression was worse before FDR and things got much, MUCH better under FDR and after ... Oh that's right they did! Herbert Hoover sunk us deeper into Depression by refusing to act and FDR acted.
What the government can do is put people to work often doing infrastructure and other type jobs that need done and will have to be done anyway. Government can also back up a failing banking system.
People working are also buying things and using services and paying taxes.
These things give the failing economy time to rebound without as much hardship being inflicted onto the people.
How FDR saved America
by louis c
While many revisionists like to talk down the New Deal and tell us that President Franklin Delano Roosevelt didn't end the Depression, that World War Two did, they need to be educated beyond that simplistic statement.
The Great Depression must be put into the context of the times. The Depression was world wide, so let's look at what other countries did. Germany decided, by free election, to put a diabolical dictator in charge of that country. Times were desperate, and the existing government in Germany let chaos reign. Germany turned to Hitler.
Italy's government was incapable of sustaining pride, enter Mussolini. Spain, Franco. Russia, Stalin. Japan. The war Lords. Get the picture.
As nation after nation sank into economic despair, they turned either away from their democracy or deeper into dictatorship.
Other nations were hollowed out. Poland, France, Austria Checkeslovakia and on and on.
Two countries relied on a new economic principal developed by John Maynard Keynes. Great Britain, the birthplace of Keynes, and the United States under Roosevelt.
You see, they believed the government was the employer of last resort. They believed in creating a safety net, like Social Security and unemployment benefits. They believed the government had to act in a time of economic crisis. The "long run be damned", we need to act now. They believed, as Keynes did, that in the long run, "we're all dead". FDR helped Americans regain their confidence in the banking system by implementing the FDIC. He put Americans to work in the WPA. He started worthwhile projects like the Tennessee Valley Authority and the CCC. Unemployment went down from 25% to 14%. Still high, but hope displaced fear.
FDR helped retool America and through Labor Unions, allowed workers a say in the work place. The best judge of FDR is not a drug addicted radio host, but the people who lived at that time, the voters. While many other nations were devolving into chaos or worse, America was a land of hope and optimism. My proof? The 1936 election. FDR won 46 of 48 states. Pretty impressive in the midst of a Depression.
The same in 1940. And when WWII struck, an optimistic Democracy joined forces with another national survivor, Great Britain, both with a people who had confidence in their governments, and defeated the dictators who emerged from the chaos that FDR prevented here in America.
There is a reason that our parents and grandparents speak so fondly of FDR. It's because they remembered him in the first person, not a rehashed history from a drug addicted radio host.
On the day that Franklin Roosevelt was laid to rest, one common man was seen crying. A stranger asked this man "Did you know Mr. Roosevelt?" . "No", the common man replied "But he knew me".
