The gap in spending and income had resulted in unprecedented national debt, already well over $250 billion and growing fast. Roosevelt had promised when he entered the White House in 1933 that he would balance the budget, something the previous president, Hoover, had failed to do. However, FDR had subsequently been influenced by the British economist John Maynard Keynes, who argued that in times of emergency (such as the Great Depression and the war), “public authority must be called in aid to create additional current incomes through the expenditure of borrowed or printed money.” In other
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No businesses working did.
