THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, THE MORE THEY STAY THE SAME!

(THEN): "The fundamental business of the economy...is on a sound and prosperous basis."
- Former GOP President Herbert Hoover -
(NOW): " Our economy, I think, still - the fundamentals of our economy are strong."
- GOP Senator John McCain (AZ) -
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(THEN): "Every time the government is forced to act, we lose something in self-reliance, character, and initiative."
- Former GOP President Herbert Hoover -
(NOW): "Government can't fix this."
- GOP House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner (OH) -
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(THEN): "Economic depression cannot be cured by legislative action or executive pronouncement. Economic wounds must be healed by the action of the cells of the economic body - the producers and consumers themselves."
- Former GOP President Herbert Hoover -
(NOW): "Not in the history of mankind has the government ever created a job."
- GOP Chair Michael Steele -
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(THEN): [On FDR] - "...amiable, pleasant, anxious to be of service, very badly informed, and of comparatively little vision."
- Former GOP President Herbert Hoover -
(NOW): [On Obama] - "he is the world's greatest salesman of socialism."
- GOP Senator Jim DeMint (SC) -
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Just as during the Great Depression of the 1930s, the nation is once again in the grip of a baffling and worrisome severe economic downturn. Fear and unemployment are rising, consumer spending is tightening, and banks aren't lending. Once more, we have two differing views as to how to overcome this crisis: Pro-government progressives and most Democrats, and anti-government conservatives and most Republicans.

Progressives view government aid to shore up faltering banks and provide work programs as absolutely essential to jump-start the stalled economy and prevent widespread, unnecessary human deprivation and suffering. They, together with President Obama, have fashioned and are implementing a Stimulus Plan which they believe will do just that. It resembles Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal in certain respects. I believe it will successfully ease burdens much as did FDR's revolutionary new plan of yesteryear.

Conservatives oppose this plan. They wish to see minimal government involvement in the economy. They believe government is too large and too influential already, and their belief is that additional tax cuts for the wealthy and big business, coupled with further easing of government regulation over business, are the only actions that will expand the economy and create jobs. I disagree with that premise.

Republicans have long favored business needs and rights over individual, human ones. They continually try, through deregulation, to get government off the backs of business, even as business climbs all over the backs of ordinary citizens with ever-rising prices, frozen workers' wages, environmental contamination, and unsafe products. The conservative Republican business community has long believed that a minimally or self-regulated free market will solve its own problems and correct itself. This group also believes that lowered taxes on business and the rich will spur investment and economic growth as well as create jobs. These are positions they have advanced repeatedly over the years, but time and again they have been proven inadequate or downright wrong. Free market speculation brought on the stock market crash of 1929 which led to the Great Depression. Last summer, free market speculation robbed and strangled us with $4.00 per gallon gasoline. It has also led to skyrocketing pharmaceutical and health care costs. Deregulation enabled irresponsible bank mortgage lending and ridiculously high credit card interest rates, and brought about record foreclosures, bankruptcies, bank failures, and increased incidences of food poisoning and even death. Massive tax cuts for the wealthy and big business since 2001 have NOT created new industry or high paying jobs in this country as had been promised. Yet conservative Republicans continue to push for even more of this nonsense, even though it is exactly what got us into the current mess in the first place.

Conservative Republicans love to falsely claim that "the New Deal didn't work" or that it was really World War II, and not government New Deal work programs, which ended the Great Deperession. Like most claims made by right-wing GOP spokespersons these days, those are misleading distortions and not entirely true. World War II DID vastly increase employment and Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but New Deal work programs like the WPA and CCC were major economic stimuli which helped get the economy moving again beforehand and eased the suffering of millions of Americans in the process. GDP rose slowly but steadily from mid-1933, when the economy had completely bottomed out and the first New Deal programs began, and continued until the recession of 1937-1938, which occurred when FDR heeded the cries of conservative deficit foes of both parties and and reduced government spending. But, with renewed stimulus from the second phase of the New Deal, GDP once more began climbing and never looked back after 1938. Of course, once war began to loom and American factories began pumping out armaments to China, Britain, and Russia, GDP was greatly accelerated, creating the conservative delusion that World War II was solely responsible for ending the Great Depression. Indeed, economic recovery had begun prior to World War II.

Consider this: At the pre-crash beginning of 1929, employment in America had peaked at roughly 31,500,000. Post-crash it dropped to about 30,000,000 and kept dropping for the next 3 years. At its lowest point in late 1932-early 1933, it had plunged to only 24,700,000. Then the New Deal kicked in. By 1937, employment had climbed back up to 31,000,000, a noticeable improvement. The 1937-1938 recession scaled the figure down to just over 29,000,000, before it rose again to 37,000,000 at the beginning of 1941. Conservatives often point to the recession of 1937-1938 as evidence of the New Deal's failure. but statistics do not bear this out. Below is a year-by-year listing of the percentage of the total work force unemployed from 1933-1943. It is comprehensive in that it includes those employed in New Deal work programs, which some studies omit.

1933 - 20.6%
1934 - 16.0%
1935 - 14.2%
1936 - 9.9%
1937 - 9.1%
1938 - 12.5%
1939 - 11.3%
1940 - 9.6%
1941 - 8.0%
1942 - 4.7%
1943 - 1.9%
(SOURCES: US Dept. of Commerce National Income and Product Accounts, Real GDP and GNP, and Consumer Price Index and Money Supply, 1800-2003; and Siley, Gene, "Recent Unemployment Estimates for the 1920s and 1930s, in the Journal of Economic History, June, 1983).

Those conservative Republicans who state that the New Deal didn't work or that government has never created a job are crazy. New Deal work programs helped two of my uncles put bread on their family's table and prevented my very own mother from starving. Also, they fail to notice our world's best postal system, our interstate highway system, many of our parks, bridges, schools, dams, public buildings, and even our space program are all government-created jobs. They also cannot deny the data posted above. No doubt, the economy REALLY started taking off as a result of our war production for World War II, but prior to that, the New Deal played a signifigant role in providing sorely needed ignition to jump-start a very stalled economy! AND, had Roosevelt REALLY gone full throttle with New Deal government spending, our economy may have very well sprung back without having had to resort to war production at all.

So too will it be with President Obama's Stimulus Plan. Our economy will definitely improve as a result of his and other progressives' sensible and timely action. But again, Republicans will try to keep the federal government from going full throttle, so once again, full recovery will be impeded and much slower than it should be. Once again, Republicans are being naysayers standing stubbornly in the way of something progressive and good for the public. Their inherent fear (see my May 31, 2008 blog: "American Conservatives' Paranoia") will freeze them in place and cause them to wrongly accuse the President and their opponents of socialism or communism and thereby try to scare the public away from new approaches they do not understand. This stodgy attitude cost Republicans dearly in the elections of 1934 and 1936, and so it will again, deservedly, in 2010 and 2012. These people just never learn and they are hopelessly out of touch with the majority of Americans. I guess it's true in this case: The more things change, the more they stay the same!