I found this Matt Yglesias posting on how U.S. Rep. Steve Austria blames Franklin Delano Roosevelt for causing the Great Depression by....wait for it....an economic stimulus package:
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.
Can the Republicans really be this stupid?
Rep. Austria then backtracked on his claim that Roosevelt started the Great Depression. In an email today, Austria wrote, ""I did not mean to imply in any way that President Roosevelt was responsible for putting us into the Depression, but rather was trying to make the point that Roosevelt's attempt to use significant spending to get us out of the Depression did not have the desired effect. Roosevelt did not put us into the Depression, but rather his policies could not pull the nation out of the recession."
In one sense, Austria is right. It was not FDR's New Deal policies that ended the Great Depression. It was the U.S. entry into the Second World War that ended the Great Depression, bringing the U.S. economy back into full production. And what did the Roosevelt administration do to bring the U.S. economy back into production after the U.S. entered the war? The Roosevelt administration spent billions of dollars building tanks, bombs, aircraft, warships, guns, bullets, while drafting millions of American men into the military. The U.S. government borrowed the money--by selling war bonds--to spend on all the war equipment, and the labor costs in paying for the U.S. soldiers and sailors. It was one, huge, economic stimulus package that brought the U.S. out of the Great Depression! That is some significant spending here! And FDR presided over this wartime economic stimulus package. I'm surprised that Rep. Steve Austria doesn't seem to recognize this FDR economic stimulus plan--or how much of a fool he is.
Then again, stupid is as stupid does.
Update: There have been quite a few comments here criticizing my assertion that the U.S. entry into the Second World War did not bring the U.S. out of the Great Depression. I will concede to their point. Perhaps I should have been a little clearer here. I saw Rep. Austria's comments on FDR's New Deal policies as an attack against government spending during an economic crisis. And the only answer the Republicans have for the U.S. government to respond to any economic problem have been tax cuts to the uber-rich, business deregulation, and really destroying the social safety net that the New Deal provided for this country. So I thought I would turn Rep. Austria's words around by saying that FDR also presided over another, huge, government stimulus program that was the war, financed by debt sold as war bonds. FDR took an active role in managing the U.S. economy with both the New Deal programs, and the war effort. And the U.S. became a stronger nation because of FDR's leadership. I believe in that. But I'm also very critical of Rep. Austria's, and the Republican Party's, misguided beliefs that tax cuts, deregulation, and supply-sided economics will solve every problem in the United States, and the insane propaganda that they spew every day. That is why I wrote this diary.