March 23, 2009

Let's fast forward four years into the future. It’s 2012; Obama has hopfully been ousted, prefereably exiled to an island; the democrats were all voted out of office and the new Treasury Secretary is asked to explain the economic situation to an anxious and worried U.S. Congress:

"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 [the term of] this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started … And an enormous debt to boot."

This is not my dream of what some future politician would say; Henry Morgenthau said this on the Congressional Record in May 1939 (what we would call the House Ways & Means Committee). Henry Morgenthau was the U.S. Treasury Secretary under President Roosevelt. He was in charge of implementing Roosevelt’s New Deal policies and after
seven years they had produced no positive changes in the economy. In fact, by May 1939, the national unemployment rate had once again climbed above the 20th percentile.
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