Fine...

I'll drop it, but only AFTER I show the world (if not Ryan, who doesn't read what I post anyway) that my facts STAND.

You quoted: "In June 1937, Roosevelt severely curtailed federal spending. Simultaneously, the new Social Security taxes began to bite into paychecks. By late summer these deflationary developments had precipitated an economic downturn at least as bad as 1929. Within months, more then 2 million workers lost their jobs. The "Roosevelt Recession" rubbed salt into the president's already smarting political wounds ..."

I'm sure the author of this ONE text book is every bit the academic ubermensch you claim he is. I define a "depression" as four fiscal quarters of negative economic growth. He obviously uses another definition, because the "recession" he is describing is the same "depression" I am describing in 1937. Four quarters of negative economic growth (GDP) from spring of '37 to the end of summer in '38. This is the ONLY downturn in the economy that ANYONE can show me from 1934 to 1940. The only one. All other years show SUBSTANTIAL and MEASURABLE economic growth each and every fiscal quarter, AND an improving (meaning falling) unemployment rate.

Prior to 1934, the fall was steady and complete from the autumn of 1929 to the spring of 1934. This was the Depression of '29, the "Big Crash". Within the decade we are discussing, there are NO other market drops or periods of negative growth. NONE.

Your second quotation: "The New Deal in its six year life composed a stunning record. To be sure, not all New Deal programs succeeded. Nor did the New Deal achieve full recovery."

How is this any different than what I have been saying all along? Sounds like this author agrees with me in as much as the New Deal CONTRIBUTED to the recovery more than it detracted. I have never claimed that the New Deal (as defined by FDR's policies throughout the 1930's) ALONE ended the era of the Great Depression, nor have I not admitted that facets of the New Deal failed utterly. It wasn't until 1943 that unemployment was LOWER than it had been before 1929... so FDR's policies failed in that regard.

So, you have made your case that the New Deal "equals" failure by quoting two text books... one of which supports MY claim that the New Deal contributed to the recovery, but wasn't the sole and only cause of the recovery and maintained programs that failed to fix what was wrong, at least initially.

To support my claim, I have linked no less than six online academic sources and cut-and-pasted numerous bits... but in the interest of fairness, I'll link the sources that support my claims, in addition to links I have already provided.

AGAIN, my claim is that the SOME New Deal programs of FDR from 1933 to 1939 DID contribute to the economic recovery, and that other facets of the programs and policies failed to solve the entire crisis, mainly unemployment. This, by its very definition, means the New Deal policies of FDR during the 1930's was NOT a complete success... but was certainly NOT a failure, as Ryan contends via his two text books and years of anti-Democrat indoctrination.

A great resource HERE, which I used several times.

The BLS website has this .PDF which shows (in Table 2) the spending habits of a broad spectrum of Americans from 1901 to 1987.

My unemployment figures (which Ryan questioned) were from the BLS

A speech by Ben Bernanke on the success of taking the US Dollar off the gold standard during the New Deal

A HUGE .PDF about the Hoover years of the Depression... use the Table of Contents to navigate!

The Fed's BEST engine for finding old data from the 30's... HERE