Fair enough...

Reasonable questions from someone we don't hear from anymore... I'm ready to follow this for a bit.

I can't deny that the light rail system in WI is, in fact and figure, a "New Deal" sort of project... or at least that it is being billed as such by Democrats within the State of Wisconsin. Obama wants that label, and the Dems in WI that are in favor of it want it too... if for no other reason than to ensure that they don't have to justify higher State taxes to pay for it. I'm saying it isn't a "national" focus to make sure that commuters from Milwaukee and Madison have a safe, affordable means to travel... even given the high unemployment across the country. It should be paid for by the State and the cities involved, and not by the Federal government. Putting 5500 people to work over the course of three years isn't going to impact the economic future of anyone OUTSIDE of those 5500 people. New Deal put between 4 and 8 million unemployed people to work... people that hadn't worked for more than 24 months, and who had no alternative means to support their families. Thanks to New Deal, we have things like Unemployment Insurance, Living Assistance programs, welfare rolls, food stamps... all already available to those who need them NOW, but which were unheard of then.

This is the reason why I feel comparisons between the two events are unapplicable. We are not now, nor have we ever been since, at the same level of national crisis that we were in the years between 1929 and 1933... not even close.

I've never denied that FDR was a progressive, an avowed "reformer", and I've never attempted to defend his progressive political views. FDR's attitudes towards social reform and progressive thinking has never been the "focus" of our debate, though... it was whether or not New Deal policies implemented between 1933 and 1938 worked to end the era of the Great Depression. Whether or not deficit spending and extended governmental control and regulation can, temporarily, address a national crisis (war, economic free-fall, national disaster, etc). You seem to be of the opinion that, as long as the nation was at war, such policies should be seen as a matter of course, but in all other instances they are un-Constitutional. I am of the opinion that the actual definition of the "crisis" need not only be war... national disasters (the seven years of unprecedented drought that happened between 1930 and 1937, for example, and brought about the Dust Bowl), economic disasters (the Crash of '29 and resulting 36 months of fiscal free-fall), or any other sort of crisis that puts the entire nation at risk.

We've had other "progressive" leaders in this nation... Al Smith, Hughie Long, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter... but we've also had leaders in this nation that have circumvented or ignored Constitutionally provided limits on government control of individual freedoms. I doubt that you would argue with my list of "progressives", but why don't you refute my position that the policies instituted by FDR are no more "un-Constitutional" than those promoted by traditionally "conservative" Presidents like any of the ones found on our currency?

Lincoln did what "had to be done", regardless of the Constitutional nature of his policies and actions (suspended habeus corpus, instituted a "national draft" and an income tax, etc)... why is he no more "demonized" for ignoring the Constitutional limits of his office than FDR? Because "war" was immanent? To preserve the Union? Can't similar arguments be made concerning "national security" issues in 1933?

George Washington "broke" the letter of the law when he called up armed militias to enforce an "illegal" tax on the production of whiskey in Pennsylvania in 1794. According to the "law", Washington needed the approval of the Supreme Court to call the militia, but he had only the "approval" of ONE Justice of the Bench, and even that Judge saw no authority to direct the actions of that militia to suppress the right of the people of Pennsylvania to protest Government excesses.

Andrew Jackson actually ignored a Supreme Court decision that the Indian Removal Act of 1830 was un-Constitutional, and continued to forcibly remove as many as 70,000 Native Americans from their established homes on recognized Treaty lands in a way that cost tens of thousands of them to die en route. How is THAT not the ultimate example of a President working outside of his Constitutional authority to move an agenda that was (obviously) contrary to what the Founders intended?

I list these examples to show that you DEFEND the actions, policies and agendas of Presidents whose views parallel yours, but you revile the Presidents whose views differ from yours, even though their actions, policies and agendas are no more "unprecedented" than the ones taken by those you support.

I'm not saying everything that FDR said or did was GOOD or RIGHT. I do not believe that every American has an inherent right to "a useful and remunerative job", or an inherent right to "a decent home", "adequate medical care ", "adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment ", or to the inherent right of "a good education"... (see, I have read the 1944 State of the Union Address!). These "rights" (if they exist at all) are already provided for in our society RIGHT NOW... in as much as we are all promised equal opportunity to these benefits through our own efforts and labors. That is GOOD. For the Government to provide these "rights" outright means they MUST (by the very definition of Government) take something from someone else to give to another. That would be BAD.

What I AM SAYING, and have said from the beginning, is that Government's reaction, in 1933, to the continuing economic crisis that began in 1929 was justified and worked to both alleviate the symptoms and conditions brought about by the Crash and reformed the systems in our society that allowed it to happen in the first place well enough to ensure that it did not repeat in the 81 years since. The "Great Recession" has been (and still is, for us here at the Chateaux de Lieteau...) a painful reminder that America needs to learn to live within her means, but it is NOT now, nor is it likely to become another "Great Depression". I am saying that it is more than mere coincidence that the cycle of boom-crash that the US saw prior to the 1930s ended with the New Deal era, and hasn't repeated since... and that amidst the many programs and policies that didn't work or were found to be un-Constitutional, something DID work to fix that particular problem in our society. Good things came from the New Deal... and because of that, labelling the entire effort as a failure is denying that which is simple, historical fact.