The New Deal didn't work? Don't believe it

Original Link: http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_11649495

By Karl Frisch

Those who have watched cable news lately have undoubtedly noticed conservative media figures attempting to rewrite history by denigrating the successes of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal policies. This amounts to an orchestrated effort to derail the economic recovery plans of President Barack Obama.

Fox News' Brit Hume recently claimed that "everybody agrees, I think, on both sides of the spectrum now, that the New Deal failed." He's correct, if by "both sides of the spectrum" Hume is referring to the right and far-right over at Fox News. He then called Roosevelt's policies "a jihad against private enterprise."

Hume's own jihad against the facts represents only a portion of the historical misrepresentations passed off as reasoned debate of late.

Witness the machinations of those on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." During a recent broadcast, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski kicked off a string of attacks against the recovery plan, using the New Deal as their dubious weapon du jour. Brzezinski said of Obama's plan, "I think we're going to have the same unemployment in three or four years, just like the New Deal." That just isn't true. Unemployment fell from 1933 to 1937.

Her buddy Joe didn't fare much better, cherry-picking data in telling viewers that unemployment was at "20 percent" in 1938, ignoring the downward trend in unemployment that occurred under the New Deal.

Joe isn't alone. Conservative columnists George Will and Mona

Charen have played the same numbers game to falsely claim the New Deal failed to reduce unemployment.

Don't take my word for it. Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the unemployment rate in 1933 at 24.9 percent and falling each year thereafter, to 14.3 percent in 1937. In 1938 it rose to 19 percent. Why the increase? As Nobel laureate Paul Krugman has noted, it was a reversal of the New Deal policies, which had reduced unemployment, that actually led to another recession and drove the numbers back up.

It's worth noting, by the way, that these numbers do not even include those in federal work-relief programs. At the time, the bureau counted those employed by the New Deal's emergency work programs as unemployed. So the unemployment numbers were actually lower than reported in these years.

The strengthening of the social safety net during the 1930s stimulated the economy while also providing assistance to those waiting to feel the economic recovery for themselves. Fox News' Bill O'Reilly lambasted portions of the president's plan aimed at assisting those most in need during these difficult times, claiming that increased funding for programs like food stamps has "nothing to do with stimulating the economy." Though his ego will never let him admit it, O'Reilly is dead wrong.

Mark Zandi, former McCain campaign economic adviser and chief economist of Moody's Economy.com, has said that extending food stamps does, in fact, stimulate the economy, noting last year that "extending food stamps (is) the most effective (way) to prime the economy's pump."

It now seems clear that conservatives are engaged in a misinformation campaign to mislead the public. So, when Rush Limbaugh, whom House Republicans once named an honorary member of Congress, recently said of Obama, "I hope he fails," it makes one wonder if he might not be speaking for all of his pals on the right.

Rewriting the history of the New Deal may be the first salvo in a long war to defeat Obama's agenda.