Free Republic

The United States has been shaped by three far-reaching political revolutions: Thomas Jefferson’s “revolution of 1800,” the Civil War, and the New Deal. Each of these upheavals concluded with lasting institutional and cultural adjustments that set the stage for new phases of political and economic development. Are we on the verge of a new upheaval, a “fourth revolution” that will reshape U.S. politics for decades to come? There are signs to suggest that we are. [....] The financial crisis and the long recession, with the strains they have placed upon national income and public budgets, are only the proximate causes...

In two books, the man who calls President Barack Obama a “food-stamp president” praised the man whose administration created the first food stamp program. Snubbing 16 other presidents including Ronald Reagan, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called Franklin D. Roosevelt “probably the greatest president of the twentieth century” in his 1995 book To Renew America. In a passage of the book in which Gingrich laid out examples of historical figures asking for God’s help for the nation, he praised Roosevelt for “openly appeal[ing] to the nation’s sense of faith and religion in summing the national will to the task” of...

Congressman Joe Walsh (IL-8) recently introduced the ‘Dairy Deregulation Act’ to phase out the government's milk price setting regime, called the "Federal Milk Marketing Orders (FMMO)". This program was established in pre-refrigeration 1937 to guarantee that there were no shortages of milk across the country. Today 74 years later, milk is the only major agricultural product with government-mandated prices that differ according to product use. Walsh stated: “Most taxpayers are unaware that they are paying for their milk twice. Currently American families are taxed to pay for a federal program that directly increases the cost of their milk. This is...

The conventional wisdom is that FDR ended the Great Depression, but more recent research indicates his policies may have prolonged and even deepened the it. They say those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. Here is a reminder of how some citizens at least saw the FDR administration…

It is an ideological milestone that the emerging Republican front-runner is as skeptical of the New Deal as anyone in his position since the New Deal. During the 1936 election, Republican nominee Alf Landon called Social Security "unjust, unworkable, stupidly drafted and wastefully financed." Now, according to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, Social Security is a "Ponzi scheme" that tells young workers a "monstrous lie." It is a "failure" that "we have been forced to accept for more than 70 years now." It is true that Barry Goldwater, during the 1964 campaign, said, "I think Social Security ought to be voluntary."...

The Great Depression dominated the 1930s, in large part because President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs failed to create jobs. In May 1939, shortly after learning that unemployment stood at 20.7%, Henry Morgenthau, the secretary of the Treasury, exploded: “We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work.” Morgenthau concluded, “I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. . . . And an enormous debt to boot!” Why did Roosevelt’s New Deal fail so miserably? The larger problem...

President Obama outlined what he called a framework for deficit reduction Wednesday. It was a tacit admission that his 2012 budget submission did not go far enough. That shows Republicans succeeded in seizing the initiative with their own comprehensive, pro-growth proposal to restore America’s solvency. Mr. Obama’s flimsy “me, too” smacks of desperation. The White House describes its latest plan as “comprehensive” and “pro-growth” but that’s deceptive. The GOP used the phrases to describe House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s package of discretionary spending cuts, entitlement reforms and tax relief. Mr. Obama hijacked the words to describe a combination of...

In the latest issue of The Chronicle Review, a professor from Adelphi University shows why it is dangerous to avoid the advice of conservative author and activist David Horowitz. Horowitz usually points out the danger of professors speaking on subjects that they are not credentialed in. “Capitalism has been around for so many generations now, proving its vitality by displacing or absorbing all other social systems around the globe, that it seems a part of nature, irreplaceable,” Paul Mattick points out in The Chronicle Review. “But its historical limits are visible in its inability to meet the ecological challenges it...

Little Boy Blue, come blow your horn, A government agent is counting your corn, Another a lecturing old mother Pig On birth control, so she’s dancing a jig. Pa’s gone to town, to see what’s what About planting potatoes on the old meadow lot. Ma’s at the radio, hearing ‘em tell How, under the New Deal, there ain’t no hell. Aunt Mamie is in Washington, drawing big pay Eating frankfurters, and pushing AAA. A lecturing folks, on the old Townsend racket. Grandpa’s gone out in his new leather jacket Says he’ll never work, no, never more, 200 a month will...

For more than half a century, biographers have treated Franklin Delano Roosevelt with Rushmore-like reverence, celebrating the nation's 32nd president as a colossus who eased the agony of the Great Depression and saved democracy from Nazi Germany. Which never sat right with historian Burton Folsom Jr. Growing up in Nebraska, Folsom remembers, his dad, a savings and loan executive, griped about high taxes and Roosevelt's voracious ambition. FDR was dead, but his legacy — deficit spending, an activist federal government, an expansive social safety net — lived on. About 15 years ago, Folsom read another of those historical surveys, this...

Reporting from Dunwoody, Ga. — For more than half a century, biographers have treated Franklin Delano Roosevelt with Rushmore-like reverence, celebrating the nation's 32nd president as a colossus who eased the agony of the Great Depression and saved democracy from Nazi Germany. Which never sat right with historian Burton Folsom Jr. Growing up in Nebraska, Folsom remembers, his dad, a savings and loan executive, griped about high taxes and Roosevelt's voracious ambition. FDR was dead, but his legacy — deficit spending, an activist federal government, an expansive social safety net — lived on.

The unemployment numbers around the United States are not getting better. Businesses are not creating jobs, and unemployment benefits are running out for many. How do we maintain an economy when the 15.1 million run out of unemployment and still can't find jobs? That will mean billions of dollars no longer circulating in the economy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9d3Lg7pJD8 Inspired by the cartoon plummeting death reform by Bolshevik cartoonist Mark Fiore. It shows what happened when we DID PULL THE RIPCORD OF SOCIALISM AND TYRANNY! We could have supported ground softening corporations instead! ^_^

It is hard to come up with gifts for people who already seem to have everything. But there are few -- if any -- people who can keep up with the flood of books coming off the presses. Books can be good gifts for such people. Among the books I read this year, the one that made the biggest impact on me was "New Deal or Raw Deal" ($10.20; 32% OFF) by Burton Folsom, Jr., a professor at Hillsdale College. It was that rare kind of book, one thoroughly researched by a scholar and yet written in plain language, readily...

It's hard to disagree. Robust economic growth solves a lot of fiscal and other problems. But Obama's fellow Democrats, to whom he explicitly directed these comments, can be forgiven for being puzzled. The whole thrust of his first two years -- the stimulus package, the health care legislation, the vast increases in government spending -- has been to put programs in place that have done little or nothing to stimulate economic growth. That's not accidental. The template for the Obama Democrats' policies, the New Deal of the 1930s, was not designed to stimulate economic growth, but to freeze in place...

Drawing striking similarities between the current financial situation and that of the 1930s, Amity Shlaes gave a lecture at Hillsdale College in February 2010 detailing forgotten yet important lessons to be learned from the Great Depression. Shlaes is a senior fellow in economic history at the Council on Foreign Relations, a graduate of Yale University, a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, author of two bestselling books, and recipient of many prestigious awards in Economics and Journalism. Shlaes begins by establishing the familiar narrative of the Great Depression that every American child is taught in school. A common...

On May 9, 1939, these words scolding the failure of FDR’s New Deal echoed the room of the House Ways and Means Committee: We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. … And an enormous debt to boot!...

I just bought a Kindal and and was reconnected to the written word, after our local book store went South and I ain't driving 40 miles when I get a word lust. I have been interested in the overthrow of the Constitution during the FDR Dictatorship, my Grandfathers discription, but Amazon is difficult to search most of what I find is FDR butt lickers. I have read a number of LS type economists but the list is rather short on the site, need help.

A heart gripping video on the Obama depresion, the failure of Democrats, The stimulus and the downfall of Middle America. Sung to the Tune of "Brother can you spare a dime?" By Al Jolson.

Is the recession's great irony that government spending killed Keynesianism? With economists, bankers and investors perplexed over the economy's continued funk, we cannot be blamed for looking in odd places for answers. Could it possibly be that continuously increasing spending over eight decades has left little ability for government spending to affect the economy? How could increased overall government spending have priced stimulative spending out of the market? To understand what has happened, we must look back to the 1930s. The New Deal was a concerted effort for government to take up the economy's slack. In 1930, federal government spending...