Leave The New Deal In The History Books

by Mark Levey - January 17th, 2009 - The Wall Street Journal

After four years of FDR's policies, joblessness declined to 14.3% -- still very high but heading in the right direction. Then things turned for worse again: By the fall of 1937, the U.S. entered a secondary depression and unemployment began to rise, reaching 19% in 1938.

By 1939 Roosevelt's own Treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, had realized that the New Deal economic policies had failed. "We have tried spending money," Morgenthau wrote in his diary. "We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. . . . After eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. . . . And an enormous debt to boot!"

The love of government power is the root of the worst evil that man can create. Despite all of the evidence that FDR's fascist based programs were a total failure, lovers of government still adore the man. It reminds me of the incredible situation in Russia where it was recently discovered that the most loved prior ruler in Russia is Stalin. His murder of millions of Russians, some estimate more than twenty million, is simply ignored.

The same attitude exists here in America about FDR. Even Ronald Reagan expressed enthusiasm for FDR. Certainly you can find nothing that indicates Obama has any problem with the insane damage done to our economy by FDR. As noted in this article, even despite FDR policies the economy tried to recover, only to be driven down even more by the consequences of FDR programs.

Economics is a complex study. However there has to be someone on the liberal side of the political landscape willing to concede that America always came out of recessions quickly before FDR. What do the liberals think really happened to make the great depression different? The only thing different was FDR's use of socialism and fascism as the guide to his governing practices.

America was a great nation when we believed in personal liberty and individual freedom based on free markets. The more we have abandoned these principals, the greater the struggle to keep our nation prosperous.

Even Republicans have abandoned the belief in free markets, which require competition to serve the people. Republicans have become believers in the Wall Street model of big corporations with mergers and acquisitions to eliminate competition and maximize profits, thus allowing corporate socialism to dominate our nation.

Neither the government socialism of Democrats nor the corporate socialism of Republicans serve the American people. We need to get back to free markets and free people, or the American dream is finished.