Gee wiz ...

I am not going to justify every action of every CIC in order to preserve the right to labelNew Deal an unconsitutional grab at power (especially when the Supreme Court confirmed that label decades before I was born); and neither does that angle of argument adress our dispute on whether the programs helped to end or prolong the era's woes.

You wrote: " ... 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."

Our beef was not whether New Deal "temporarily" addressed symptoms of the era, it was whether it repaired the economy, but more on that in a moment. Here's my question on a more fundamental level first: what's the cut off? When are things at "crisis" so as to justify a fundamental reordering of the role, scope, reach & size of government? In your efforts to discern between New Deal and Obama, to provide justification for one and not the other, you seem to have a beef not with whether Obamanomics works or not, but rather with the idea that the Great Recession doesnt meet the needed threshold of "crisis", in order to justifiy his programs. Which brings me back to the question, when is it a "crisis?" I know you've answered this before as when an economic downfall is "tearing at the fiber of our nation", or words to that effect. But honestly, and I want you to toss this around in your head a bit - do you want to extend the sort of latitude to our government to "step in" that such a definition allows for? You see, as a limited government advocate (which I believe you are becoming), I want to seethe smallest government possible. And the idea that as a people we would say to our government that it has the right (or even duty) to engage in unprecedented expansions of its power, authority, and intervention - no matter how well intentioned - based on a criteria of justification such as "I'll know the crisis when I see it", rather then the criteria spelled out in the Consitution, is enough to cause me great worry.

As a further point, you can note that it's more than a coincidence that we've not seen a depression since New Deal, but explaining the reason as "something" in New Deal, without being able to name that mysterious something, I find to be a rather facile argument. And by the way, given that the majority of New Deal either didnt survive the court purges or ended on its' own by 1941 (a point you've repeatedly made), how could it have been safe guarding us from a depression for the last 81 years?

Beyond that our argument wasnt whether New Deal abated the symptoms and pains of the era. No one argues that if government hands a man a bowl of soup that government has ended that man's hunger for an afternoon (Al Capone was capable of that). The crux of our debate was whether New Deal worked as a sound economic plan to reverse the era's woes, whether it repaired the economy. I contend that deficit spending on government work programs, high taxes, the introduction of laborious regulations and agencies, and the various other identifiable aspects of New Deal all act contrary to a genuine (versus government propped) recovery. And I use the 38' Recession as one example of what happens when a government primed (via federal dollars) economy has the spigot turned off - and since we cant spend indefinitely the whole thing is doomed to failure. But your recent comments seem to defend New Deal as merely necessary "relief." Yes that was one of the 3 R's, but the idea that New Deal was simply relief meant tie us over until the economy recovered is much different then arguing it acted to actually bring about that recovery. The first line of your quote above seem to steer your argument towards the former ... which would represent a "fundamental transformation" of your argument. Interesting dear Watson ... very interesting.