Something Ryan said is sticking with me...

Ryan posted that his "summation" was made in the last half of his "Bund of Brothers" post, so I went back and re-read it several times. Here are my thoughts... with quotes.

Ryan seems to be (repeatedly) advocating the benefits of a course of action that wouldn't be proposed by ANY politician until 1979, at least not with any national credibility, but he is injecting this point of view almost 50 years into the past. After repeated re-readings of the above-mentioned post, I can readily admit that deregulation of commerce and production, outside of national security interests, a low Federal tax rate, and a greater emphasis on State-level control is the best way to keep an economy running smoothly, and I agree that the best historical example of this is Reagan.

Perhaps my point can best be summed up by asking, what reasonable and contemporary plan could have been followed as an alternative to the progressive and centralized programs that the New Deal instituted? We can say (again and again and again) that the New Deal and the Hoover plans weren't "Reaganomics", but that is a non sequitur of the first degree.

Referring back to our discussion about Jackson's actions in 1830, how can we feel it is acceptable to take a paradigm established in 1981 and force it into a formula firmly found only in the 1930s? Is there evidence that someone in 1929 or 1930 was advocating everything that Reagan advocated (or that Ryan advocates today), so that we can establish that FDR was presented with a plan offering an alternative course and that he chose NOT to follow it? THAT would constitute a failing on the part of FDR in my book, far more than saying "He should have known better than to do what he did" nearly 80 years after the fact. What I see as the historical case is that FDR was elected on the promise that he would change the status quo to fix the problems plaguing America in 1932, and FDR delivered on that promise in every area but one... unemployment.

If Ryan's point is that "Reaganomics" would have done more to fix the economy in 1930 than anything that either Hoover OR FDR was advocating, then I can agree with him whole-heartedly. That isn't the same as saying the New Deal "failed utterly", however, and I still maintain that the nation as a whole benefited from many aspects of the New Deal programs. But, if it furthers understanding between points, when it comes to the manner and means that the Executive Branch should handle a sagging or failing economy, Reagan had it right.

Measuring the New Deal with a "Reaganomics" yard stick is a great way to prove the validity of Reaganomics, but it doesn't work to disprove the gains made by New Deal to address the issues presented in 1929 by the Great Depression... because the paradigm didn't exist.

Labeling most of the New Deal as unconstitutional (as you did twice in your previously mentioned post) is also counter-productive to the fundamental nature of the debate, because it isn't shown to be true, historically speaking. The SCOTUS determined that the National Recovery Administration was determined to be unconstitutional, this is very true... but not because of anything FDR did. This is always assumed to be the fault of the Administration, typically because of the price-fixing nature of the NRA, but the unconstitutional aspect of the NRA was that it was an illegal delegation of authority by Congress to the White House. The Court determined that Congress had signed over too much oversight of commerce between States to the Executive Branch of government, and if you are going to blame someone for doing that, it shouldn't be FDR. Arguing that Social Security is unconstitutional is a purely academic effort as well... because the SCOTUS decided that SSI was constitutionally sound TWICE since its inception and institution.

Can anyone find examples of a "great" President that wasn't forced by circumstances to abandon the status quo and look for alternative means to reach a goal? After April of 1861, Lincoln was handed defeat after defeat, and setback after setback, from his top generals, but he didn't simply throw up his hands and say "To hell with it!" did he? He kept picking new generals until he found a core body of leadership that showed they could deliver on the stated goals of the Union forces and win the war. Go back even farther, and you see that Lincoln had the opportunity to follow in his predecessor's footsteps and continue with a compromise ideology over the question of slavery, but he didn't follow that course. He chose to utilize the military of the Union states to force the issue, once and for all. Reagan had 35 years of containment policy to follow in regards to the USSR when he took office, and the example of seven previous Presidents clearly showed that the status quo worked to maintain the balance of power in the world... but he recognized that the grand strategy would have to be fundamentally changed if the US was going to WIN the Cold War, and he did that through pure force of will.

Can anyone deny that the definition of "conservative" policy and laissez faire politics in the 1930s was wholly contained in the advocates of the Hoover Administration? Can anyone show where even ONE policy or program of the Hoover years did ANYTHING to effect the downward trend the economy was falling into starting in 1929? Saying loudly and often that F Ryan doesn't believe in a recovery without jobs is fine for RIGHT NOW, but it is terribly hard to defend when that view is forced backwards into history by about 80 years. I don't think I'm being unreasonable when I say that the American people were damn sick of the "all or nothing" approach that the Hoover White House had taken for the first three and a half years of the depression, and my proof is in the election results for 1932... FDR as President, a 73% majority in the House for the Democrats and a 60-seat majority in the Senate for the Democrats. This majority control was maintained right through to the 1940 election, telling me that the vast majority of Americans DID see results they could believe in... even if unemployment remained too high.