Michael Hiltzik writes two columns on economics each week for the LATimes. He is a liberal pretty much aligned with the Democrat Party proscriptions for curing depression and recessions. In today's column "Obama's push for jobs conjures up FDR's approach", Hiltzik endorses the Obama plan to increase government spending on the infrastructure and raising taxes on the wealthy, two major components of FDR's New Deal plan. He also knocks Romney's recent announced plan as a "return to the Bush era". In extolling the New Deal proscriptions, Hiltzik seems to have forgotten this revealing 1939 quote from Henry Morgenthau, a major player in the Roosevelt Administration as Secretary of the Treasury:
"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong … somebody else can have my job. 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."[9]
Morgenthau was clearly frustrated by the fact that deficit spending by the government did nothing to reduce enemployment during the first 8 years of the Roosevelt Administration. And yet, here we are in another recession/depression of a similar magnitude to the Great Depression of the '30's, and Hiltzik and the democrats are calling for the same failed policies Morganthau condemned.
Hiltzik's book, "The New Deal: A Modern History, is due out sometime this week. Whaddaya want to bet it doesn't include this Morganthau quote?
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