Amity Shlaes: Obama Threatens to Follow in FDR's Economic Missteps
[Amity Shlaes is a senior fellow in economic history at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of "The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression."]
With unemployment high and the Dow Jones industrial average bumping about, the big debate this summer is how to prevent a double-dip recession resembling that of the late 1930s. Some say Washington should spend more, arguing that government austerity triggered the collapse in 1937 that erased previous gains. Others say that cutting spending now will strengthen the economy generally and preclude dramatic downturns.
President Obama may be about to repeat Franklin D. Roosevelt's mistakes -- but not the ones captured in this narrow discussion.
By fixating on the debt and stimulus plans, Obama and Congress are overlooking challenges to the economy from taxes, employment and the entrepreneurial environment. President Roosevelt's great error was to ignore such factors -- and the result was that sickening double dip....
Read entire article at WaPo
With unemployment high and the Dow Jones industrial average bumping about, the big debate this summer is how to prevent a double-dip recession resembling that of the late 1930s. Some say Washington should spend more, arguing that government austerity triggered the collapse in 1937 that erased previous gains. Others say that cutting spending now will strengthen the economy generally and preclude dramatic downturns.
President Obama may be about to repeat Franklin D. Roosevelt's mistakes -- but not the ones captured in this narrow discussion.
By fixating on the debt and stimulus plans, Obama and Congress are overlooking challenges to the economy from taxes, employment and the entrepreneurial environment. President Roosevelt's great error was to ignore such factors -- and the result was that sickening double dip....