Obama: Campaigning Like It's 1936

Forbes ^ | 10/28/2011 | Merrill Matthews

[TYVets]

By August of 1935, Roosevelt had achieved some of his signature pieces of legislation: a new entitlement program known as Social Security, banking reform, pro-union reform, infrastructure expansion and massive transfers of wealth to the poor and middle classes. Sound familiar?

[TYVets]

FDR also ran up federal spending significantly: from 6 percent to 9 percent of the economy.

So he ( FDR ) wanted to raise taxes on the rich, which he dubbed a “Wealth Tax.”up to 79 percent—and to lower the thresholds so that more high-income earners paid more taxes.

He also wanted to increase the estate tax. As for business, he wanted to close the “loopholes,” a graduated corporate income tax and a tax on intercorporate dividends.

[TYVets]

Link Failed

Perhaps this works

http://www.forbes.com/sites/merrillmatthews/2011/10/28/obama-campaigning-like-its-1936/

[edpc]

No biggie. It only led to many more years of The Great Depression, inspired The Great Society, and brought us to the precipice where we now have a wonderful view.

/s

[broken_arrow1]

One other thing FDR and Obama have in common - both are/were assholes elected by an ignorant American populace.

[TYVets]

FDR's tax increases were job killers. WWII saved his bacon.

Now I think I have the link:

http://www.forbes.com/home_usa/Forbes

Scroll down the right hand side to:

Most popular

Things are not going well for me this morning. My brain needs caffeine to work, I have gone to make coffee BBL.

[Siena Dreaming]

Link in #2 worked for me.

[Fred Nerks]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/merrillmatthews/2011/10/28/obama-campaigning-like-its-1936/

[TYVets]

Link in #2 worked for me.

After a cup of coffee and three tries my brain starts to function, more or less.

[RayChuang88]

So he ( FDR ) wanted to raise taxes on the rich, which he dubbed a “Wealth Tax.”up to 79 percent—and to lower the thresholds so that more high-income earners paid more taxes.

He also wanted to increase the estate tax. As for business, he wanted to close the “loopholes,” a graduated corporate income tax and a tax on intercorporate dividends.

We know what happened when those tax increases were passed: the US economy promptly sank back into the depths of the Great Depression, and it took the start of World War II to truly revive it.

[Carl LaFong]

Actually, it seems more like 1917.

[Buckeye McFrog]

I disagree. FDR was campaigning much harder to the left than Obama is currently. (the article correctly points out that FDR felt compelled to do so because he feared followers of Huey Long and Father Coughlin yanking the party out from underneath his left flank).

That’s not to say that by this time next year Obama won’t be in full-bore 1936 FDR mode. He probably will reach a tipping point where he feels he’s suckered as much money out of Wall Street as he’s liable to get.

[grumpygresh]

During the FDR era, socialism, communism and fascism had not yet been shown to be flawed economic models. Today, we have the benefit of historical evidence that conclusively demonstrate the fallacy of cental command economies. We also have conclusive evidence that shows the the economy improves when these policies are reversed.

[WOBBLY BOB]

F**** Dummy Roosevelt also had 3400 Executive Orders...Barry better step it up to match his hero.

[WOBBLY BOB]

“ We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong … somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises … I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started … And an enormous debt to boot ! ”

These words were spoken 72 years ago before the House Ways and Means Committee in May 1939 by Henry Morgenthau, Jr. — close friend, lunch companion, and loyal Secretary of the Treasury until 1945 to President Franklin D. Roosevelt — and key architect of FDR’s New Deal.

http://www.burtfolsom.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/Morgenthau.pdf

Morgenthau made this startling confession during the seventh year of the New Deal programs seeking to combat rampant unemployment during the Great Depression.

With these words, Morgenthau summarized the harsh suffering and protracted misery, the lost decade that was the 1930’s.

When FDR was elected President in 1932 unemployment was 23%. When Morgenthau spoke these words seven years later, just before the start of World War II, unemployment was still 19%.