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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michael97123 who wrote (455873)	2/12/2009 11:27:47 AM
From: d[-_-]b	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1574033

The new deal programs that ended, probably ended prematurely. Hoover did try to balance the budget almost immediately on recovery news - Dalibama telegraphs the same intent with the idea to drop the Bush tax cuts ASAP.

To: michael97123 who wrote (455873)	2/12/2009 1:33:06 PM
From: i-node	Respond to of 1574033

Michael It is seldom mentioned, but is a fact, that before the first hint of the New Deal, FDR took an ax to government spending. Keeping in mind the total budget at the time was only about $5B, of course. But before proposing the New Deal spending to help people who were in desperate condition, his first thought was, "We have to get control of government spending". And this he did. The first substantial action FDR took after the bank holiday was to get the federal budget straightened out by making substantial cuts in veterans entitlements that had run out of control since WWI. This had become 1/4 of the entire budget. He proposed congressional pay cuts from 10K to 8.5K and his own salary cut from 90K to 75K. He told Congress the government was on the road to bankruptcy, had caused the economy to stagnate and exacerbated the unemployment problem. He went so far as to blame government spending, in part, for the banking collapse. Congress was furious with FDR for his proposals. But he got what he wanted. My point is that FDR didn't see the New Deal as the big-government, big-spending program it has now become. SS and Unemployment benefits were to be self-funded, and somewhere along the line, there was to be leadership who took control of the federal budget. I think Obama sees himself as a neo-FDR and nothing could be further from the truth. FDR would NEVER have promoted the kinds of spending we see in this so-called stimulus bill. His "stimulus" was targeted and timely -- literally, putting millions of people to work within months of passage. Contrast that with the socialization of America we are now seeing -- 30-40% of the spending proposed in this bill won't even happen for 2-3 years. This, alone, ought to tell everyone we're dealing with pork rather than stimulus to a large extent.