American Presidency : The Utopia Of Government? How About Unopeia?

Although the New Deal had many supporters, it also had many enemies. As shown in Document 2, Roosevelt states, “I can realize that gentleman in well-warmed and well-stocked clubs will complain about the expenses of the Government because… their Government is spending money for work relief.” Roosevelt perceived the people that were well off during the Depression as opponents of the New Deal because they complained about how much money the government would spend on work relief. The U.S. debt increased from $22 billion to $33 billion from 1933 to 1936. Furthermore, in Document 4, it is illustrated that commerce and industry leaders opposed FDR’s New Deal. They felt as if the New Deal was an act of dictatorship, and were against his theory of federal

The businessmen and bankers were against Roosevelt's “New Deal program.” (Source B). “They feared his experiments, were appalled because he had taken the nation off the gold standard and allowed deficits in the budget, and dislike the concessions to labor.” (Source B). Mr. Roosevelt did not like being talked about like this so he responded with a new program of reform which was: Social Security, heavier taxes on the wealthy, new controls over banks and public utilities, and an enormous relief program for the unemployed. Yet another action taken by him to ensure that all the American people were satisfied. And in response to the people who still has fear in them Roosevelt says that “The only thing you have to fear is fear itself.” (Source

In FDR’s Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression, Jim Powell discusses how Roosevelt’s New Deal actually prolonged the Great Depression and made it significantly worse economically for the people in the 1930s United States. Powell reveals a different angle of the “hero” Franklin Delano Roosevelt, his New Deal, and how he allegedly lead the United States out of the Great Depression. Throughout this book, the author analyzes the actions and repercussions of Roosevelt’s economic decisions revealing how these decisions actually made the depression significantly worse. Along with that, the author analyzes the various policies and implementations in a more in-depth way that really convinces the reader of the poor

One of the most severe worldwide economic downturns in history is known as the great depression. Numerous amount of issues and problems were taken place between the years of 1929-1939. The great depression brought a rapid rise in unemployment, bank failure, and much more. Despite the wide range of issues, Franklin D Roosevelt was actually concerned about the depression. Roosevelt's response to the great depression was very effective because he had launched the new deal, due to the uprising problems and issues of the great depression.

D. Roosevelt in 1933 in direct response to the unemployment, poverty and economic deflation caused by the Great Depression (Romer, 2003:2), was a system of policy adjustments for which “Keynesian economics form the basis” (Henretta, et al., 2011:368). Before Roosevelt’s election, President H. Hoover had adopted policies based largely on classical economics – an essentially laissez-faire approach which favoured minimal government intervention (Dautrich & Yalof, 2013:426). The “Keynesian View” (Parkin, 2009:634), adopted by Roosevelt, “attempts to alleviate the pain of economic downturns, hold down the unemployment rate, and boost the disposable income of the worst off” (Boix, 1997:816) with government-implemented policy at its

Many different arguments emerged from Roosevelt’s New Deal. Some people believed that FDR was against the idea of business, they had no hope for the economy, and thought that the United States would be in debt forever. In the letter to Senator Robert Wagner, the author explains the unemployment rates, and how the government hasn’t done anything to stabilize the economy. In fact, the author believes that communism is arising and everything clashed together will lead to a “disaster to all classes”. Meanwhile, Franklin Roosevelt was creating jobs to decrease unemployment rates, and he created the National Industrial Recovery Act, which proposed fair competition and collective bargaining for workers. The author of this letter is proven wrong because in fact, America did turn around, and FDR’s policies were ultimately extremely effective. The unemployment rate was brought up again in an NBC radio broadcast by John L. Lewis in 1936. This broadcast spoke about the “labor unrest”, the strikes that unemployment has provoked, and the major issue of huge corporations having the right of self-organization and collective bargaining. Once again, Franklin

(Quote) “ It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another, but above all, try something” (FDR). (Background) This was explained by FDR when he was president of the United States. (Explanation) FDR wanted Americans to try new things because of the new public works programs and even if they failed to admit it, they would just try something new again. (Relationship) Critics stated that FDR and his administration methods were not effective, however, (Thesis Statement) the response of FDR and his administration to the problems of the great depression were effective, because they created the new deal programs, revived enterprise, and they created better conditions in the workplace.

As soon as Franklin Roosevelt came to power, he was quick to react to the countries needs. The text states, “Swift legislation regulated the stock market and the banking system, improved the agricultural economy, and introduced a social security program” (“Great Depression”). Franklin Roosevelt was swift in recognizing the problems facing the country and attempted to solve the issues. His legislation focused on securing the economy and beginning to built back up the trust between the government and the American people. It was successful, to an extent. People did begin to trust the government again but economic decline would not stop immediately. There were signs of progress; From 1933 to 1938 the economy experienced growth. Unemployment fell and national income increased (Jeffries). This statistic shows that New Deal reforms had some positive impact on the economy. They also succeeded in restoring confidence to the average person which was extremely important at the time. This statistic does not, however, reflect that this growth was very small relative to the growth experienced during World War II. New Deal policies failed to ever achieve enough economic growth to push the nation out of the depression. Another cornerstone of the New Deal was its campaign to make life more safe. The New Deal worked to make life less risky, and in a sense it did through acts

The United States since its adoption of the Constitution in 1787 has accumulated total amount forty-five presidents over two-hundred and thirty years. These forty-five presidents as history and the United States continues, will be the subject of analysts throughout history, who will try to rank them from the best to the worst. The book written by James Taranto and Leonard Leo, ‘Presidential Leadership: Rating the Best and the Worst in the White House’ is one of these analytical books shoving the presidents into a ranking by using a survey of professors of history, law and political science to rate them. This book by Leo and Taranto focus on a handful of prime objectives for the readers to overserve while reading the book. The first is to

The traditional view of Franklin D. Roosevelt is that he motivated and helped the United States during the “Great Depression” and was a great president, however, as time has passed, economist historians have begun analyzing Roosevelt’s presidency. Many have concluded that he did not help America during the Great Depression but instead amplified and prolonged the depression. Jim Powell wrote about FDR economic policies and did an excellent job explaining Roosevelt’s incompetent initiatives. Roosevelt did not know anything about economics and his advisors made everything worse by admiring the Soviet Union.

He thinks Roosevelt did not help to restore American economy, rather, he changes it to what the economic system was like in Europe before WWI, in which government controlled everything (business, taxes, and borrow money from citizens to invest). He believed Roosevelt did not create a new economy, he simply just substituted with an old one which was a threat to American traditional (private system) economy. He also thinks the New Deal made the country in huge debt ($19 billion before Roosevelt, $250 billion after Roosevelt, and government budget of $40 billion instead of $4 billion before Roosevelt). He used examples like the doubled-prices-inflation and how it reduced the lower-paid employed workers to a state of poverty as bad as that of the unemployed in the depression to show how the New Deal is hurting the economy. He also talked about how more people are on various kinds of government relief than when the country had 11 million unemployed, and how bureaucrats are in every field of life. With all that, he argued, the President and his policies is still calling for more power, more price-fixing, more regulation, and more billions. Same thing with the political, he thinks Roosevelt did not restore the political system to its full strength, he changed it instead. He uses examples like how he is trying to break down the power of Congress and put it all in his own hand. In conclusion,

The modern presidency has in a sense become a double-edged sword in that presidents have become beneficiaries of anything positive that can be attributed to government, but also can be blamed for anything bad occurring in society. Quite simply, the modern president has become the center of our political system (The Modern Presidency, 2004). The men who have dealt with this double-edged sword known as the modern presidency have often walked a very fine line between effectiveness and ineffectiveness, but all have attempted to use their power in one way or another.

FDR's New Deal was a good idea, in theory, but it missed its mark. The "New Deal" was the Government's way to pull the economy out of the Depression without avail. Since people didn't have money to spend or they refused to spend money, the economic growth was null. The specifics of FDR's plan was " to alleviate the suffering of the nation’s huge number of unemployed workers. Such agencies as the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) were established to dispense emergency and short-term governmental aid and to provide temporary jobs, employment on construction projects, and youth work in the national forests." (The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d.) The New Deal did setup unemployment

Because of their positions in the government and their resulting influential abilities, presidents are either praised for advancing the nation, criticized for not doing anything to help the country, or even making the country’s situation worse. Their success as president is dependent on the success of the country. People don’t take into consideration the attempts presidents make, but only those things that help or hurt the country. This leaves room for there to be a good president who may not accomplish much and a bad president who may accomplish a lot.

Due to the fact that the New Deal did not necesarily "end" the Great Depression, speculation circled throughout the population. Liberal critics argued that the New Deal did not go far enough to hlp the poor and to reform the nation's economic system, while Conservative critics thought Roosevelt spent too much time on direct relief. Many critics overall believed that the New Deal interfered with the workers of a free-market economy. Later on, during the late 1930's, the Supreme Court struck down New Deal organizations as "unconstitutional". Overall, people were skeptical about the seriousness of the New Deal which was said to magically end the Great Depression, and critics and Supreme Court Justices acted out due to these opinions.