FDR'S GOVERNMENT: THE ROOTS OF TODAY'S FEDERAL BUREAUCRACY
Fifty years after his death plunged America into mourning, the legacy of Franklin Delano Roosevelt is under siege as never before.
As ceremonies and tree plantings across the country begin today to mark the half-century that has passed since the death of America's 32nd president on April 12, 1945, argument rages over the welfare state he created. And a dispirited Democratic Party is asking whether it can survive the Republican onslaught.
FDR set in motion activist, programs that brought government into every corner of American life.
For Roosevelt, change was policy. "It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something," he said.
To that end, he fashioned the New Deal; he built dams and brought electricity to millions, created farm subsidies and unemployment insurance, regulated a stock market gone out of control, set up a social security program for the elderly and gave unions the right to organize.
Led by House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), Republicans argue the welfare state and the federal bureaucracy that FDR created and nurtured has gotten out of hand.
Much of what FDR accomplished now is under attack and pieces of the federal bureaucracy that were born during the Roosevelt years face privatization, rethinking, consolidation and even elimination. |
