Silently killing the New Deal
The Republicans have been trying to kill FDR’s popular New Deal programs since the time they were introduced.
Roosevelt tried a whole array of programs to get the US out of the Depression in the 1930s. If a program wasn’t producing the desired results, he would replace it with another.
Kenneth Davis, an historian wrote: ” The New Deal..” was” “.. bitter medicine to conservative Wall Streeters and corporate leaders, most of them Republicans. To them. (it) reeked of socialism and Communism.”
Some of the New Deal programs weren’t successful. But others, like the FDIC, SEC, and Social Security Act are taken for granted today by most Americans as popular programs that will provide working people with security in old age and provide needed oversight to our financial and banking institutions.
In politics, it is hard to kill programs popular with the general public. But there is a back door. It is very popular to lower taxes and unpopular to raise them. So if the people in power are successfully able implement programs (like greatly lowering taxes) that ultimately result in a situation where a financial crisis results, it will become increasingly easier to kill the programs in lieu of the alternative: greatly increasing taxes to keep the government operating.
Krugman, an economist and columnist, outlines the situation in today’s New York Times.