Insanity – are We There Yet?

Many have used the quote, “insanity is doing the same thing, over and over, and expecting different results.” It has been attributed to Albert Einstein (1879-1955), but evidence is lacking. Regardless of who said it, the principle is true and a good gauge for evaluation. How does the current situation of America measure up? Are those in power repeating past policies, ideologies, arguments, etc., and expecting different results? First, let us take a look at the past and then compare it to today.

 Hover, FDR and the Great Depression

 One of the myths prevalent about Franklin D. Roosevelt and the great depression is FDR’s miraculous decent upon the catastrophic past policies leading to the depression and saving the day. However, history has show that this mythological personification of FDR and his administrations are not only inaccurate, but a revision of history. From the writing of Amity Shlaes, Jim Powell, and Jonah Goldberg, to name just a few, they have set the record straight.[1] Not only did FDR not save America from the great depression but contributed to its prolonged duration. To blame just the Democrats would be unfair and inaccurate. Herbert Hover, the Republican President prior to FDR, was just as negligent.

 Failed policies

 Jim Powell, in his book FDR’s Folly, sums up by identifying ten factors that contributed to the onset and continuation of the great depression.[2] Let’s look at several of these and compare them to what we are doing today.

 First

 Both Hover and FDR believed that government spending would get America out of the depression. What they ignored was the fact that government spending can only come at the expense of the people – taxation. Hover’s Smoot-Hawley tariff raised import duties on agriculture and manufactured goods by an average of 59 percent. In return importing nations raised their import duties, which raised prices on almost everything in the United States. FDR  raised taxes on liquor, tobacco, gasoline, flour, corporations, estates, money for investing in  your corporation, and the starting of the social security tax, just to name a few – and all in the name of the redistribution of wealth. The only problem was the “wealth” dried up. What employer, company, or corporation wanted to invest in the company (which also meant the people), when most of their profits were going to go to the government. Thus, unemployment continued to rise along with prices. Today we’ve seen government spending (by both Republicans and Democrats) at unprecedented levels again in the name of wealth redistribution. Obama, in true FDR fashion has not only declared that we (the government) can spend our way out of our economic woes, but that only the government can fix the problem.[3]As history has shown, taxation must and has followed.