Obama the new FDR?

President Obama and the Democratic Party might want to be careful about any comparisons to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR is certainly one of our greatest presidents. After all, he faced crises on the domestic and global fronts that no other POTUS has faced. His legacy is as solid as that of Washington or Lincoln, great men who faced severe challenges as well. But FDR did not end the Great Depression as American mythology would have us believe. The vast array of programs that made up the New Deal sought to tackle the economic downturn (understatement) that began shortly after the inauguration of President Hoover. The explosion (understatement again!) of government programs and intervention under FDR and his agreeable Congress never eliminated the Depression. Americans were going to elect anyone but Hoover in 1932, and all the Democrats had to do was run on a vague populist platform that promised change.

Sound familiar? While George W. Bush was not running in the 2008 election, the Democratic Party treated the election as if he was, shrewdly tying Republican candidates for just about any office with W. Senator Obama also promised change with a strongly populist platform. He avoided mentioning any specifics about his program. He didn't need to. The momentum was clearly in his favor. But like FDR, once in office, he had to act. Both of these presidents enjoyed the support of Congress. This was not because of a tremendous groundswell of bipartisanship. It was due to political control. There was certainly a core group of Republicans that were concerned about the growth of government. The programs surly came flying in although with good intentions. After all, millions of Americans were suffering and the U.S. had a staggering 25% unemployment rate. But despite the tremendous growth of regulatory agencies and job-creating bureaus, the unemployment rate never dropped below 15%. And to emphasize the reliance upon deficit spending, when FDR and Congress attempted to pare back some of the New Deal programs, the economy took another nose dive. War production brought on "full employment." The New Deal was really life support rather than resuscitation.

What is the point here? The Keynesian approach of spending our way out of economic problems was troublesome for FDR. He was concerned with the rising national debt! But the populist approach was keeping Democrats in office. This made it much easier to reach for greater heights. FDR suffered from a degree of hubris. Is that what our current president is succumbing to? Congress under Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid are willing to give him a leg up to reach for the heights. The point we need to consider is whether "healthcare reform" is a power grab similar to the genesis of the welfare state under FDR. Who will ever have the guts to take entitlements away from the people who the Democrats have convinced are the victims of greedy corporate America? Talk about a sacred cow! But Obama, Pelosi, and Reid do not have a world war to do the REAL work of eliminating the economic crisis. If Democrats want to play the FDR way, they had better consider the cost. Americans will eventually see that this is an administration that is using the faltering economy to push through their higher agenda. That agenda is going to cost trillions of dollars and it has to come from somewhere. We Americans are not big on taxation. We are likely to see the greatest spike in taxation that has ever taken place in the U.S.A. That is, of course, if there are not significant cuts in programs. The modern progressive Democrats have made little effort to hide the intended source of that tax revenue. It will come from the rich. That sounds great to lower middle class and working class Americans. But the definition of rich is dynamic. How low will the standard for "rich" have to drop in order to secure the revenue to pay for the ambitious programs on the burner. Populist appeals and class warfare always work in an economic climate such as exists today. If prosperity returns, you can count on a strong backlash to expanding the government trough.