When Franklin D. Roosevelt became President in 1933, he started to promote deficit spending to create jobs and provide aid to the millions of poor, unemployed and homeless!
Throughout the first term of the New Deal, FDR continued to promote economic stimulus, and although the Great Depression did not end, life was a lot better by 1936!
But under harsh criticism by conservatives and ideologues, in 1937, FDR cut federal spending and public works programs. This, unfortunately, led to a big drop in the economy, and the creation of the 1937-38 Recession within the Depression, making life much worse! This is looked upon as a tremendous mistake that prolonged the Great Depression! 🙁
In 2009, Barack Obama came in and promoted an Economic Stimulus bill to deal with the worst economic mess since the Great Depression! Aid to state and local governments, extension of unemployment compensation, and the inception of public works projects were all part of the mix!
The effects of this economic stimulus are just starting to “kick in”, and already we are hearing from many quarters that we must not continue to extend aid to states and localities and not continue unemployment compensation to the long term unemployed! Instead, we must cut spending and worry more about accounting figures, rather than those people within our midst who are victims of this Great Recession! 🙁
Therefore, the Senate has rejected extended economic stimulus, at least for the moment, but the Republican party is unlikely to allow any progress in this regard, and gaining 60 votes to overcome a filibuster is highly unlikely! 🙁
So hundreds of thousands of teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other public servants will be dismissed, and many people who have met the limits of unemployment compensation and are in danger of losing their homes as well, will be thrown to the wayside in the battle to cut spending and forget human suffering! 🙁
The result will be what the GOP wants: a downturn of the economy, a “double dip” recession, which they will then attempt to blame on the Obama Administration! 🙁
What a disgraceful state of affairs, not the way we should deal with the worst economic conditions in eight decades! 🙁 But more than ever, it looks like 2010 and 2011 and maybe 2012 will be a reprisal of 1937-1938! 🙁