Great Myths of the Great Depression Quotes

“In the first year of the New Deal, Roosevelt proposed spending $10 billion while revenues were only $3 billion. Between 1933 and 1936, government expenditures rose by more than 83 percent. Federal debt skyrocketed by 73 percent.”
― Lawrence W. Reed, Great Myths of the Great Depression

“In surveys, a majority consistently rank FDR near the top of the list for presidential greatness, so it is likely they would reject the notion that the New Deal was responsible for prolonging the Great Depression. But when a nationally representative poll by the American Institute of Public Opinion in the spring of 1939 asked, “Do you think the attitude of the Roosevelt administration toward business is delaying business recovery?” the American people responded “yes” by a margin of more than 2-to-1. The business community felt even more strongly so.”
― Lawrence W. Reed, Great Myths of the Great Depression

“Under Roosevelt, the top rate was raised at first to 79 percent and then later to 90 percent. Economic historian Burton Folsom notes that in 1941 Roosevelt even proposed a whopping 99.5-percent marginal rate on all incomes over $100,000. “Why not?” he said when an advisor questioned the idea.40”
― Lawrence W. Reed, Great Myths of the Great Depression

“During a period of barely two months during late 1937, the market for steel — a key economic barometer — plummeted from 83 percent of capacity to 35 percent. When that news emblazoned headlines, Roosevelt took an ill-timed nine-day fishing trip. The New York Herald Tribune implored him to get back to work to stem the tide of the renewed Depression. What was needed, said the newspaper’s editors, was a reversal of the Roosevelt policy “of bitterness and hate, of setting class against class and punishing all who disagreed with him.”38”
― Lawrence W. Reed, Great Myths of the Great Depression

“The Wagner Act, or National Labor Relations Act, was passed in reaction to the Supreme Court’s voidance of NRA and its labor codes. It aimed at crushing all employer resistance to labor unions. Anything an employer might do in self-defense became an “unfair labor practice” punishable by the Board. The law not only obliged employers to deal and bargain with the unions designated as the employees’ representative; later Board decisions also made it unlawful to resist the demands of labor union leaders.34”
― Lawrence W. Reed, Great Myths of the Great Depression

“Some defenders of FDR, such as economist Paul Krugman, blame the 1937–38 collapse on a reduction in government spending. In typical Keynesian fashion, they claim that the economy tanked that year because the president, after nearly doubling federal spending in his first term, caved to GOP demands to rein in expenditures. But in real terms, the reduction was puny — less than 1 percent of GDP. Even by Keynesian standards, this blip could hardly have produced the ensuing one-third decline in industrial production.”
― Lawrence W. Reed, Great Myths of the Great Depression

“In the six months after the law took effect, industrial production dropped 25 percent. Benjamin M. Anderson writes, “NRA was not a revival measure. It was an anti-revival measure … Through the whole of the NRA period industrial production did not rise as high as it had been in July 1933, before NRA came in.”25”
― Lawrence W. Reed, Great Myths of the Great Depression

“Some economists have estimated that the NRA boosted the cost of doing business by an average of 40 percent — not something a depressed economy needed for recovery.”
― Lawrence W. Reed, Great Myths of the Great Depression