Reply #14: Here's their reframe - [View All]

[truedelphi]

Before anyone jumps on me for this, let me say that I admire Roosevelt and his policies greatly. But here's detailed accounting of the revisionist meme:

Immediately after the Stock Market crashed, a cerain minor segment of the US work force was put out of work.

But not until FDR got into office in 1933 were there record levels of unemployment. This was due to his pouring money into the economy, and also due to the Taft Hartley tariff bills, obstensibly passed to protect the local job market, but actually destructive.

What is wrong with this reframe is obvious if you think about it. Of course the Stock Market crash of 1929 did little to affect job loss numbers immediately. It took a trickle down effect of several years for the decrease in jobs to be noted.

First of all, since the economy had been roaring along, most states were able to provide for their citizens throughout fiscal year 1930. It was only in fiscal year 1931 that layoffs in the state and city governments affected the people all across the nation. School teachers, social workers, accountants, firemen, nurses, police etc all felt a pinch in terms of layoffs and hiring. Those people being laid off led to a further increase in jobs lost.

I have read several letters to the editor and it does make my blood boil when the discussion says that since the job loss numbers for 1933 were so high, Roosevelt is to blame. But usually, no President has any policy so powerful that his actions can make much of a difference in the first year of their Administration. If job loss numbers were at record highs in 1933, it is activities preceeding Roosevelt that caused the job losses, not his assuming the Presidency in March of that year.