While the New Deal was certainly a period of action marked by a series of government experiments, we still disagree on whether or not it was a success. The recession of 1937 proves that the programs were not resistant to economic decline, and the unemployment rate was still high by the late 1930s, despite the steady growth of the GDP over the decade.
Which criticisms of the New Deal do you find most convincing? Are they at all reminiscent to economic or political rhetoric that we still use today?
In my opinion the criticisms of the New Deal that I find most convincing is the "Republicans Roast Roosevelt." In this article the constant direct comparison to the Constitution is used to show how Roosevelt went the wrong way about solving things. In this article almost every beginning paragraph sentence starts with "instead." This is powerful because it is almost like a list is being formed of all the ideas that were and went wrong by Roosevelt. This article critics the New Deal Administration directly, "the New Deal Administration has for seven long years whirled in a turmoil of shifting, contradictory, and overlapping administrations and policices. Confusion has reigned supreme." This shows that Roosevelt almost did nothing more than make it all worse. This then leads into the fact and scare that we have become to reliable on the government. All in all they felt that "The New Deal Aministration has failed America."
ReplyDeleteThe criticisms of the New Deal that I find most convincing was when the article stated that many businessmen and bankers, “ felt that the New Deal targeted them, got the government too involved in the free market, and weakened their companies by forcing needless and harmful regulations on them.” I found these criticisms most convincing because as it stated in previous readings, Hoover took money out of the economy instead of putting it in. He also enacted the Emergency Banking Act of 1933 which shut down banks for four days. The bank shut down made people nervous which in turn made people start to withdraw their money from banks at an exponential rate, causing the stock market to crash and inevitable great depression. I believe what happened in 1933 is reminiscent to what is happening today economically and politically because today many people feel that the government should be less involved in small businesses. Economically, the businesses are concerned that the government is taking too much money from them in taxes while politically, businesses do not like to be told what to do and how to do it by the government.
ReplyDeleteAfter I read these readings, I felt that the Criticism that is most convincing is how dependent people were getting on these new government handouts and not enough on getting themselves out there and working without the aid of the government. I think that as the country was getting brought up onto its feet after getting swept away so badly, that the help to get back up was needed greatly, but as many people have criticized, the "new deal" programs were a little to involved with the way people found work. At the same time though i think that the "new deal" shaped the modern america with the building of her many national landmarks and a base for our future government to work off of.
ReplyDeleteFor me, the most convincing part of both reading are the "Opposition to the New Deal" and the comic "Assessing the New Deal". It was so true that when a new policy was launching, there must be many different flavors and it is almost IMPOSSIBLE to fit in different people's flavors. Although I still believe that the New Deal saved the United Sates and it was successful because it is always better if something happens to turn the direction to positive, all those disagreements showed how the New Deal wasn't considering enough for different people in different classes. There were taxpayers, rich people who didn't want to be involved, people who were holding a different belief... and they really showed something that the New Deal was not perfect. When evil comes, those who are standing outside definitely do not want to lose anything, but everybody have to make a choice, even "sacrifice". Everyone has a chance and choice, while other people may take their chances and choices, that's why the New Deal was so debatable even now. There are some economic and political rhetoric that are still used today, for example, the Social Security, retire policy, controlling free market place, etc. Those are some factors that built the modern United States economy and policy rhetoric today.
ReplyDeleteI think that the Criticism that is most convincing is how dependent people were getting on these new government handouts and not enough on getting themselves out there and working without the aid of the government. I think that as the country was getting lifted up onto its feet after getting knocked down so badly, that the help to get back up was needed, but as many people have criticized, the "new deal" programs were a little to involved with the way people found work. At the same time though i think that the "new deal" shaped the modern america with the building of her many national landmarks and a base for our future government to work off of. To be honest i am on the fence with this one. i think FDR's programs were needed and helped america become what we know and love, but they could have evolved into something much more sinister.
ReplyDeleteI think the most convincing criticsms against the FDR's New Deal came from Francis E. Townsend. His plan of making it so that older people can retire, opening up job positions for younger people. While we do have Social Security today retirement age keeps going higher and higher while Social Securities stop becoming so secure; the government spent it all! I'm also not sure how I feel about the governments limited involvement. On one side I see that the government getting involved will help slow down the economic collapse and provide a safety net. On the other side I see the government not getting involved would let the economy just crash faster, making recovery that much quicker with the plus side of not having gone into any debt. All these issues talked about them are at the core of the ideas everybody is discussing today with big government and small government and what they should get involved in. When it involves the federal government I guess it all comes down to my grandfather's motto: fatti e cazzi tui (mind your own f*ing business)
ReplyDeleteThe article that seems the most concincing to me is the "Republican Roast Roosvelt" because there are some decent valuable argument accused the New Deal program and FDR's adiminstration for trying to capture the superme court by challenge the consituition and a bit of cleverness.Also, by listing the undisputed fact that the FDR admistriation demosticated the us the deficit,doubled the national debt, and expensed the hands of federal goverment over ciziten's every day life just pinches the FDR very well.
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