I have a question on the great depression...?

Question

After a long history of limited government in the United

States, the Franklin Roosevelt Administration in the 1930s, responding to the hardships of the Great Depression, launched a whole series of government programs in an attempt to improve social and economic conditions. In so doing, the Roosevelt Administration seemingly changed forever the role of the national government in American politics. Assess the consequences of this major change in national politics—what has been good, and what has been the bad from your perspective?

thank you for your time

Answer 1

OK, let's look at the negatives.  Roosevelt created a number of socialist style programs.  To pay for these programs, he had to gut an already skeletonized military (with war looming on every horizon).  Programs such as Welfare to this day still exist.  The intent at the time was that it was only to be temporary.  The definition of success for this program is that there are people always being signed up for it.  Folks, this is not the definition of success.  It IS however, a symptom of failure.  Success SHOULD be in the ability of people to get off the program and be self sufficient.  It has become a generational way of life.

Roosevelt brought this country as close to communism (socialism) as it has ever come.  Economists have been stuying economic models and have concluded repeatedly that Hoover's "do nothing" policy was actually the correct answer.  That Roosevelt's interventions actually set back the economic recovery of the nation by about ten years.  Roosevelt's "New Deal" was no deal.

Not to Shanna: highways did not exist until Eisenhower became president.

Answer 2

Social Security Administration--good thing to help people start planning for retirement.

TVA Tennessee Valley Authority--good thing, helped rural people get electricity and helped some with flood control

CCC Civilian Conservation Corps--helped put young people to work and planted many trees

FWA Federal Works Administration Helped give many artists jobs and many of their works would otherwise never have been done. Did many oral histories that really let us see what life was like then.

Answer 3

creation of the federal reserve and no longer on the gold standard -- good

reforms on wall street -- good

creation of the streets/roads/bridges/highway infrastructure in time for the automobile industry -- good

creation of the WPA that included the arts that helped shift the center of the art world from Paris to New York -- good

creation of social security -- good

helped transition the country for preparation of WWII -- good

The only negative I can really think of is that there wasn't really much thought beyond recovery of the depression and getting through WWII.  However, that's a tall order for any situation.  Some call it the creation of the "welfare state."  I think that's harsh, however, the government did not place many incentives to encourage people to remove themselves from government aid/welfare.  

Do read over your assigned readings, and place yourself in the shoes of someone who was unemployed with a family at that time.  What would you need to do to pay your bills and support your children?    That should help you write this answer out, because your teacher is asking you about YOUR viewpoint and interpretation on the assigned reading.  

Good luck.

Answer 4

Roosevelt invented Google.  Which you evidently have never heard of...

Answer 5

FDR essentially started the welfare state for the US, through the New Deal.  In doing this, he was only catching up to the rest of the world.  If he had not done so, this would have started (as in Canada) about a decade later.  It is very doubtful if American citizens could have competed against other internationals, without the assistance social programs gave them.

The New Deal created a sense of attachment to the federal government - Social programs gave them a sense of believing and trusting in the government; knowing that it was there for them.  When WWII came, this heightened nationalism made them willing to fight for the US, even when the battle was so remote from the homeland.

Though not all aspects of the New Deal worked well, it gave people the perspective that at least the government was doing SOMETHING for them - and they appreciated the effort, even if sometimes it was ineffectual.  It may not have ended the Great Depression, but it gave hope; so the psychological effects were tremendous.

Some Bush-ites try to read the Depression through the lense of modern politics, and blame the (inevitable) New Deal for the whole welfare state...and thus, government deficits.  But, they ignore that FDR was very, very fiscally conservative - avoiding government debt.  They also forget that the debt has grown the most during cutbacks in the welfare state, and under Republican governments.  The US is in great debt now, but few remember that Clinton talked often - and, very credibly - about paying off the entire national debt by 2015.

In short, the New Deal was beneficial in the hope it gave, the nationalism it helped build, and was NOT something that led to government debt.