Posted on 03/28/2015 10:00:36 AM PDT by Kaslin
This is a column I never expected to write. That’s because I’m going to applaud Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman.
This won’t be unconstrained applause, to be sure. Roosevelt, after all, pursued awful policies that lengthened and deepened the economic misery of the 1930s. can see from this video, the “economic bill of rights” that he wanted after WWII was downright malicious.
Truman, meanwhile, was a less consequential figure, but it’s worth noting that he wanted a restoration of the New Deal after WWII, which almost certainlywould have hindered and perhaps even sabotaged the recovery.
But just as very few policy makers are completely good, it’s also true that very few policy makers are totally bad. And a review of fiscal history reveals that FDR and Truman both deserve credit for restraining domestic spending during wartime.
Here’s some of what I wrote for The Hill. I was specifically responding to the cranky notion, pursued by Bernie Sanders, the openly socialist Senator from Vermont, that there should be tax hikes on the rich to finance military operations overseas.
"The idea has a certain perverse appeal to libertarians. We don’t like nation-building and we don’t like punitive tax policy, so perhaps mixing them together would encourage Republicans to think twice (or thrice) before trying to remake the world."
But “perverse appeal” isn’t the same as “good policy.”
That’s why I suggest another approach, one that used to exist in our nation.
"…lawmakers would be well served to instead look on the spending side of the budget. …This may seem like a foreign concept in today’s Washington, but it actually was standard procedure at times in our history."
Consider, for instance, what happened to domestic spending when the nation entered World War II.
As you see from this chart, these outlays fell significantly as a share of GDP. And this was while Roosevelt was in the White House!
I note in the article that much of this improvement was the result of rising GDP, but the raw numbers from the OMB Historical Tables also show that nominal spending was constrained.
The same thing happened during the Korean War. Once the conflict began and policy makers began funding the troops, they also put the brakes on domestic spending.
Unfortunately, restraining domestic spending when military spending is rising is no longer the standard practice in Washington.
I point out in the article that we got across-the-board profligacy under President Johnson.
Reagan, by contrast, did reduce the burden of domestic spending when he boosted defense outlays to win the Cold War.
But then we had a return to guns-and-butter spending last decade during the Bush years.
Which led me to write this surreal passage.
"…we have two odd collections of bedfellows, with Presidents Franklin Roosevelt, Truman and Reagan in one camp vs. LBJ and Bush in the other camp."
Though there’s only one good president mentioned in that excerpt if we’re grading overall records.
I remember (yes I’m old but it wasn’t prehistoric times) when the MSM would actually mention the “deficit” occasionally.
In the Era of Baraq, it disappeared like “McJobs” and “homeless problem”
Oh, hey, ALL good libs know that the booming economy of the 50’s was because of FDR!!!
But the 90’s boom was Bill Clinton all the way!!!
HA! Idiots all.
here’s how to restore the budget and push fiscal responsibility
—
toss the 16th amendment, break apart the IRS and reestablish taxation as per the founders.
the state owes the federal govt tax money, not the individual.
set up taxation on a state by state basis, the type of tax being up to the state to decide.
reestablish the IRS to be state centric.
establish departments of taxation in every state to collect taxes from residents and funnel monies to the IRS
the amount owed by the state is dependent on the population of the state compared to the country, as per the founders. if the state has 10% of the US population, they owe 10% of the federal budget.
the budget must be passed by jan 1. if it is not passed, states will owe per the previous year’s budget.
no spending, except in times of war, will exceed the budget. any expenditures exceeding the budget will result in the immediate removal of all parties involves, with all benefits forfeit.
It’s a miracle we won WWII with FDR and Truman in charge..
a MIRACLE...
The real budget buster did not exist quite yet during the time of FDR and Truman. What is the real killer is unionized government workers. Under FDR and Truman government spending actually turned into something tangible, like dams, bridges, buildings, etc. Today with government workers unionized, we see nothing tangible. The government spends it all on either transfer payments to the unproductive or salaries, pensions, and health care to every government worker and all the retired ones on the Federal, State, and Local levels. Remember your teachers in HS back 30-40 years ago, guess what, if they still have a pulse, you are all still paying for them.
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