How good are those WPA tools?

Ok, last stab.

If we are BOTH accepting one another's assertions as researched and provable "fact" (I also grant you that), then we are left with our subjective, individual standards as to what defines "success" or "failure."

Follow me here, and maybe we can both sleep without waking up at 4a.m., restless, ready to pounce and expand on our argument (for one night anyway). I think NOW we are getting at the heart of modern day debate over New Deal. I point to the still high unemployment (in 1939 I'm talking); the rate of business failure; etc, etc that was still persistent well after New Deal implementation (the most controversial in modern New Deal debate being deficit spending on government ran programs, not Lend Lease), and yet you are able to point to 75 out of 84 months of a rise in GDP. Ok. So what defines success?

If you are comfortable with that GDP number qualifying the New Deal a success, then fine. I can not call that "wrong", it is your opinion of what success means. As for me I can not. If I'm looking at the 1930's (to oversimplify our more complex arguments for a moment) and I see well after New Deal implementation that unemployment still hovered at 1 out of every 5 men. That 50% of all businesses were still failing; that we experienced another sharp recession (the Roosevelt recession, regardless of congressional budget demands, he signed off on it so he owns it), I can not, in my judgment, describe FDR's economic policies as a success. My threshold isn't necessarily higher, but different, then just the GDP number. And for a very specific reason. The business failure rate and unemployment was making everyday life in America a struggle, as you well know (making this current "crisis" look like the proverbial cake walk). I couldn't imagine being a husband and father, walking around in 1939, given the numbers I cited, and thinking to myself - boy New Deal rocks (I have hind sight, granted, so they wouldn't have my future to compare it to as I do, I'm just trying to illustrate a point).

So look, I don't think you want to label New Deal as a quote, "unqualified success" (you can't accept my numbers as you have and still do that); but neither can you accept my labeling the ENTIRE thing an "unqualified failure." That's reasonable, fine. But if that is reasonable, can we then at least agree on this point: given the various hardships I have cited, persisting on until WWII, is it fair to label New Deal "more failure then success?" Think about this for a minute before you answer - this depends on your honest assessment on what defines "success" for New Deal. If you can't call it an unqualified success, and I amend my statement (given your GDP numbers) to exclude the description "unqualified failure", then we are left with deciding rough percentages - was it 60/40 failure to success? 70/30? Or would you describe it the other way around? I realize judging the entire scope and breadth of something as complex and massive as the New Deal is fulderale but lets just go with what we do know and have researched about the New Deal. Given all the information both I and you have presented, I have to judge it more failure then success. I insist that those hardships persisting until WWII (most notably but not exclusively, unemployment) give me cause to legitimately make that claim.

Again, putting a solid number on it (like 70/30 etc) is probably foolish to even attempt off the top of our head, and be accurate. But I feel safe in at least asserting it was more failure then success. Is that an acceptable description to you? "More failure then success."

If not, fine. That simply means we have irreconcilable differences in what we define as "success", thus our debate moves on from New Deal, and into a proper definition for an administration's economic "success" threshold.

I await your answer . . . but ponder what I've said, if you will.