Buckeye State Blog - OH-07: Steve Austria Is Clueless and Ignorant of History - Comments

thanks

khitch — Wed, 11 Feb 2009 21:44:57 -0800

Through my life I have believed Herbert Hoover a mad villain. Obviously the depression landed in his administration but Hoover's history was not one of being dispassionate it seems he just did not know what to do. It appears that Roosevelt amplified programs that Hoover was toying with. I believed Hoover a do nothing like W but a little investigation reveals he was a humanitarian and did care only not certain of what to do. I recall as a child being taught of the depression and the teacher assureing us that it could not happen again because of regulations since and a candidate of late that called himself the deregulator. In my life I have seen so many lessons lost to history. Iraq, Vietnam, the depression man can learn apparently mankind cannot.

Hoover was not entirely laissez-faire

kJk — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 09:52:45 -0800

As has been stated, Hoover did take action, but he took action far too late, and much of the action he took was horrendously ill-advised. Hoover's administration deserves some credit for the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, but not too much, as they waited until 1932 to create the RFC. Some Hoover people stuck around in DC into the first few weeks of FDR's administration to help with the banking system rescue plan. Hoover and FDR actually had a stand-off on how to implement the bank holiday, with Hoover refusing to solely sign-off on it and FDR holding to the mantra "one president at a time."

But seriously, we all know Roosevelt caused the Great Depression, and everything he did dug us in further. He even started World War II just to fix the economy. What a punk.

"Historians" say official unemployment was at least 25% in 1933, with underemployment closer to 50%. They "claim," for instance, that Toledo had close to 80% unemployment. They claim that by 1941, unemployment was down to 15%. They further claim that from the beginning of the New Deal in 1933 to the beginning of World War II in 1941, GDP consistently and sharply rose with one exception--the period in 1937 when Roosevelt cut spending and attempted to restore fiscal discipline after his first reelection.

Don't believe these "historians," because they don't know anything about the 1930s compared to a guy whose surname indicates that he was there when Hitler paraded through Vienna after the Anschluss in 1938.

Does anyone believe Steve Austria knows this Keynes guy's entire name? It's Francis Scott Keynes, right?

Debatable

Free Market Politics — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 09:45:29 -0800

"The economy began to recover after Hoover in large part because of Roosevelt's Keynesian actions."

That's debatable. In fact, I and others would argue it's not true. Maybe another time; I refer BSB readers who wish to consider another view here.

My point above was that it is inaccurate to characterize the policies of raising taxes, restricting trade and Big Government spending as "laissez-faire." That seems indisputable to any person who understands what "laissez-faire" means. No revisionism here. Austria speaks for himself, but my point remains: We know what Hoover did and why it didn't work. Why are there politicians in Washington advocating these failed policies 80 years later?

fmpolitics.com - Free Market Politics

Steve Austria = Moron

BuckeyeNation — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 09:39:45 -0800

Yet another captive of wingnut revisionist history. Any tell them that their great Satan FDR, was revered by their "hero" Ronald Reagan?

Did we read the same history book?

cromesbl — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 08:33:03 -0800

Honestly...you've got to wonder which chapters in our high school history texts we skipped, if we've somehow missed that ROOSEVELT caused the Great Depression, and that Hoover's great failing was that he DID TOO MUCH.

Unbelievable.

The revisionism here stinks like a month-old tomato. Yes, my right-wing friends, the War did help to pull the economy out of a mini-recession, but Nick D's got it exactly right: the economy began to recover after Hoover in large part because of Roosevelt's Keynesian actions.

Isn't it possible, just POSSIBLE, that differing economic theories can be equally correct at different moments in our history? The "cut taxes and it'll go away" approach has been tried this decade, and largely failed to simulate our economy. TARP was W.'s too-late attempt to correct for that...and I credit him for at least recognizing the times called for an approach that differed from his own.

Let's not be too quick to dig our trenches, gentlemen, because we just might end up buried in them.

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Hoover? Laissez faire? Not true.

Free Market Politics — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 07:20:28 -0800

Republican Hoover did a lot of ridiculous, economically-indefensible things, including marginal tax rate hikes, trade protectionism (Smoot-Hawley) and massive expansions in government spending when the economy started to contract. In other words, he was not a laissez-faire President. Also in other words, he did a lot of the things being talked about in Washington by some pretty influential people. Not good.

The problem with Democrat FDR's New Deal was that it doubled down on Hoover's failures and exacerbated some already-pretty-ugly problems. It wasn't until the U.S. labor force shrank when 12 million Americans went to Europe to fight a war that economic problems - starting with rampant unemployment - began to get solved.

These don't fit into the neat little "Republican vs. Democrat" box that many like to boil things down to these days, but they are facts. No great fan of Austria, but he's (partially) right on this. The part he gets wrong is in failing to assign a share of blame to Hoover.

fmpolitics.com - Free Market Politics

OH-07: Steve Austria Is Clueless and Ignorant of History

Nick D — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 06:26:59 -0800

Wow. US Rep Steve Austria is now trying to blame the Great Depression on FDR, despite that fact that it began 4 years before he took office under the administration of GOPer Herbert Hoover. Hoover advocated a laissez-faire approach, and that resulted in the Depression deepening until FDR got into office. Nice work, Steve. Maybe you should stop reading the GOP talking points and crack open a history book.

If you do that, Steve, you'll discover that the Keynesian approach did work. The economy bottomed out in 1933 and began improving until 1937, when everyone thought that there was enough stimulus so the government pulled back spending, causing another recession.

From the Dispatch:

U.S. Rep. Steve Austria said he supports a scaled-down federal economic-stimulus proposal, but the Beavercreek Republican told The Dispatch editorial board that the huge influx of money into the economy could have a negative effect.
"When (President Franklin) Roosevelt did this, he put our country into a Great Depression," Austria said. "He tried to borrow and spend, he tried to use the Keynesian approach, and our country ended up in a Great Depression. That's just history."

Most historians date the beginning of the Great Depression at or shortly after the stock-market crash of 1929; Roosevelt took office in 1933.