It DOES look like a bailout intended for the upcoming Administration to take credit for. Or is it a rope-a-dope? FDR and Ike enabled infrastructure programs that actually did help the country. This bind-less “gift” is more like handing the Democrats a Trojan Horse they can’t help but squander.
This would work if the Republicans had someone as canny as Attwater still minding strategy. Now there’s no one but wussies and outright betrayers. If this weren’t true the Republicans would have accomplished something (anything!) when they had total control for two years.
What’s that? A few good Supreme Court appointments? Zero may have three to choose. The Pubs dropped the ball by playing footsie. We need a third party to disrupt a status quo that’s contaminated our government.
I have done some reading about the Depression and FDR (for example, John T. Flynn’s The Roosevelt Myth) and my understanding is that FDR’s government spending retarded the recovery, exacerbated unemployment and economic malaise, and crowded out private initiatives that would have been more productive. Certain individuals may have benefited from the government spending, but the lost opportunities were unseen, and certainly there was no improvement in the economic picture until the postwar boom.