Learning from the New Deal: How FDR’s Economic Legacy Has Damaged America December 11, 2008

Host: The Heritage Foundation. Elected on a buoyant tide of promises to balance the increasingly uncontrollable national budget and reduce the catastrophic unemployment rate, the charismatic President instead made dramatic changes to federal programming that directly contradicted his campaign promises. Price fixing, court packing and regressive taxes were all hidden in the alphabet soup of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal. These programs increased the financial strain on many and discouraged entrepreneurs from taking business risks that could have revived the national economy. The New Deal survives in the form of many current government programs such as farm subsidies, minimum wage laws and welfare programs. Roosevelt’s imperious approach to the presidency changed American politics forever, and as he manipulated public opinion, American citizens became unwitting accomplices to the stilted economic growth of the 1930s. All these years later, America still struggles with the damaging repercussions of FDR’s legacy.

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