Polls have consistently shown that far more Americans still blame George W. Bush for the country’s economic difficulties than those who were prepared to place responsibility on the man who has been president for the last few years. That fact, along with an economy that wasn’t very good but still not as terrible as many thought it might be, was enough to re-elect Barack Obama earlier this month. In doing so, Obama became the first president to successfully run for a second term, while blaming his predecessor for his own failures, since Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who buried Alf Landon in 1936 by running against his predecessor Herbert Hoover.
That was quite a trick, but President Obama should be wary of emulating FDR in every respect. As Amity Shlaes wrote yesterday in Bloomberg News, Roosevelt’s second term provides some ominous precedents for an Obama second term. As our colleague John Steele Gordon wrote earlier this year, it may always be 1936 for liberals who believe conservatives are doomed to perpetual defeat. But what the president and his supporters should be worrying about is whether 2013 turns out to be a repeat of 1937, when a country mired in the Great Depression suffered another economic setback that heightened the country’s misery. As Shlaes points out, signs abound that the “Great Recession” that Obama claimed to save the country from during the campaign may be about to get worse.
The key clue is the drop in industrial production that set off a decline in the stock market in the aftermath of the president’s victory. One can’t compare that drop to the precipitous decline that America suffered in 1937 (when most stocks lost half their value). But as Shlaes writes, the link between the two situations may be the federal government spending sprees that both Democratic presidents engaged in, followed by tax hikes that spiked any chance for growth.
Another troubling parallel is what she calls the fallout from first-term legislation. In FDR’s case, the New Deal may have given many Americans hope, but the result of the vast expansion of federal power and the consequent diversion of money from taxpayers to the government was “reduced available cash, increased uncertainty and lower business confidence.” As Bethany wrote earlier today, the impact of the implementation of ObamaCare on business has the potential to raise unemployment and send the country into another “Great Recession.” In both cases, governments that have tried to “play God” with the economy may bring down on the nation policies that can “spook markets and employers whatever the decade.”
While FDR was able to keep blaming the country’s ills on Hoover until Tojo and the Japanese imperialists bombed Pearl Harbor and finally ended the Depression, it remains to be seen whether Americans will still be grousing about George W. Bush if a year or two from now that they are stuck in another “Great Recession” brought about by Obama’s policies.
Admittedly how we got in to our present financial crisis is very complicated. There were, over several decades, numerous laws passed, numerous policies enacted more or less effectively or ineffectively, numerous decisions made, and numerous events, – some seemly sound but with unsuspected side-effects, some with consequences that were either unintentional or inadequately considered, some with hidden agendas, some with dishonest intentions, some just plain stupid, and some outrageously wrongheaded. n nAnd all sorts of people were involved; but essentially every GD one of them were/are part of the thoroughly over-exalted “ruling class”, you know, the “smart people”, our betters whom we are constantly told, mostly subliminally, we need to manage our affairs because we are just too stupid. n nDoes anyone on God’s green earth have a comprehensive understanding of what when wrong and what to do about it? NO! Some people might bristle at the idea that the answer is: NO! but TS; the answer is: NO! n nWhy is the answer: NO!? Because the GD media and the ruling class have abandoned essentially all efforts to pursue the Truth. Instead everyone in the media and the ruling class has decided practically in unison to pursue their political agenda and to twist and distort any and all of facts in the service of advancing their political agenda. Serving for the sake of the nation and the American people? Who give a *; that is sooooo passé. n nIf we cannot agree objectively on how we got into this mess and all of our other messes, we most certainly never solve any of our complicated problems. n nMoreover, nobody – this goes especially for the media and the various member of the ruling class – has sufficient authority to solve any of our problems because NOBODY – this also goes especially for the media and the various member of the ruling class – has objective authority. n nAnd how can they have any objective authority, and why should they have any objective authority, when everybody knows our whole culture is saturated with post-modern lying. n nThat is why the answer is: NO! And why it will mostly likely remain: NO! until it will be decades, if not centuries, too late to do anything right to fix the mess we are in. n nBut for people to say that it is Bush’s fault is the epitome of stupid. Each person holding this view is a proof point for why we are in a hopeless mess. n nIt is not surprising that politicians behave the way they do, but the media is supposed to be above this, to be our safeguard against the mechanization of partisan and dishonest politicians. Instead the media has actually become the prime mover of the political agenda. That so many people think it is Bush’s fault is one of the many dumbing-down “accomplishments” of the media. n nThe fundamentally DISHONEST and CORRUPT media is killing our country. n
"If we cannot agree objectively on how we got into this mess" – this "mess" was caused by an artificial expansion of cheap credit coupled with mandated subprime lending for Fannie Mae and Freddie mac, it is currently being exacerbated by further interventions into the natural corrective processes. Stay calm and read Hayek, he won a nobel prize on this very subject. It is not difficult to conceive of causes, in particular since the causes and the policy reaction have already been done before.
Jonathan Tobin is clearly hoping that a new recession will occur. This is just more hate-Obama garbage.
I eagerly await for calls from the Department of MSNBC to repeal the 22nd amendment so as to allow The One to rule w/o term limits. n nSic Semper Obamus
Remember what finally ended the Depression of the 1930s after the willful prolongation by the politicies of FDR and his advisors? ____Should we watch carefully for Obama to repeat that saving ploy? We already know not only from his statements, i.e. "ashamed of this country" and his destructive actions with active and passive cooperation from representatives of the People in Congress and Judiciary. that Obama hates/despises the nation and her people and wishes them ill.. ____Watch this space for the FDR ( JF Kennedy ) hat trick by Obama to get ALL the people behind him as distraction from the economic mess he has deliberaely escalated.. China is sabre rattling and plays by different rules than the goo-goo West..____Presidents can always, with a little help from their friends in Congress, find a plausible reason to send young men, and now maybe young women of America to fight and die in foreign fields. That is one way to "bring the country together" IF the propaganda/entertainment/educational media are fans of that particular warmonger.
Good one…the dept. of MSNBC. Actually, I'd be worrying about their influence if he ever called for Cabinet meetings. n nI've been reading The Three Roosevelt's. I'm just beginning the part on FDR and his choices of getting people back to work and money back in the coffers. He really didn't have a clue on how to accomplish any of the above. Neither did Hoover when he was in office. n nWe know the war got us out of it but this hit and miss of taxing and spending that comes up as an answer is so annoying. It didn't work before, so we should try it again? 4 years have been lost so let's do another 4 till they realize, Hhhhhmmmm, let's lower the taxes, see what that does.
What a unique take on the events of those days you have This is, in fact, the only time I have ever read anyone suggest that FDR's legislation caused the Recession of 1937. Most attribute the Recession of 1937 on the deep cuts in Federal spending in 1936 as well as the extreme tax increases of that same year. The lesson almost everyone else learned from this was, be very cautious about drastic budget cuts or drastic tax increases during bad economic times. However, Congress seems doomed to repeat the mistakes of 1936. I hold out little hope that they will all the sudden come to their senses; I dread the coming days and the looming disaster.
What a unique take on the events of those days you have This is the only time I've ever read of anyone blaming the recession of 1937 on FDR's legislation. Most people agree that the recession was caused by the severe budget cuts and extreme tax increases of 1936. The lesson most of us learned is, avoid large budget cuts or major tax increases during economic hard times. I suspect you're only rewriting history to fit into your premise that "Obamacare" will kill the economy as much as the recession of 1937. Certainly, you'll get some takers, too bad you begin with a false premise.
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c'mon, Tobin. it's pretty fair for Americans to recognize that the economy melted while McCain and Obama were still vying for votes…….. n nif it hadn't McCain had a shot at winning the thing and Obama never would have been president.
thanks for the link to the book, but I don't think that anyone here scants the centrality of the nation's industrial capacity nor do we forget that it was government spending and a central economic plan that propelled it all.