As a fan of anyone who points out the absurdity that is Paul Ryan, here is yet another. This comes from Bruce Murphy of Milwaukee Magazine, and is worth a quick read.
The ghost of Herbert Hoover is haunting certain Republican leaders and Wisconsin’s Republican congressman from Janesville, Rep. Paul Ryan. Hoover, of course, was famous for his solution to the Great Depression – cutting government spending – which just made the Depression worse.
Except Hoover didn’t cut spending. In fact, Roosevelt clobbered him at the election for saying he taxed and spent too much. You know, you should look these things up. If only there were some way to do that:
http://tinyurl.com/234qxp7
Being a computer novice that was pretty cool squid. HOWEVER you should read your own links.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/nov/02/tom-mcclintock/california-republican-lumps-obama-hoover-his-appro/
Hoover is widely blamed for worsening the economy by signing the Smoot-Hawley law. But that was a tariff; Hoover’s record on taxes is more complicated. He did sign the Revenue Act of 1932, which more than doubled the top income tax rate and probably worsened the nation’s already dire economic situation. But that law came three years after the Depression began, so for the first three years of his tenure, the economic outlook worsened without any assistance from a tax hike. Indeed, the tax laws then in force were initiated by steep tax cuts urged by long-serving Republican Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon and enacted under Hoover’s predecessors, Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge — not necessarily a winning argument in favor of low taxation. Finally, Hoover did in one instance reduce taxes rather than raise them: He signed a joint congressional resolution that cut taxes by 1 percentage point on Dec. 16, 1929, shortly after the stock market crash of 1929.
Ok, so he DID raise taxes like you stated with the Revenue Act of 1932. And even with the 1% cut at the end, the net affect was still a whopper of a tax increase.
But your post was about spending, which he also increased. That’s why they signed that act, to pay for all the spending that was going on. I don’t get this notion that Hoover decreased spending because he flat out did not. It’s actually stated in the article that you replied with: “Meanwhile, Hoover did indeed hike taxes and spending during his tenure, and he signed the Smoot-Hawley Tarriff Act of 1930, which raised tarriffs on thousands of goods to record levels.”
So both Obama and Hoover have increased spending. I will agree the jury is still out on the taxes because we have yet to see what will become of the Bush income tax rates, estate tax, and capital gains and dividends. However, you can’t pay for a trillion dollar healthcare plan without raising taxes SOMEHWERE. I suppose a 10% tanning salon tax or a 2.3% tax on medical devices(I thought we were supposed to get lower healthcare costs with Obamacare) doesn’t count as tax increases.
Hoover was a progressive. The Democrats attempted to get Hoover to run as their candidate for President. In 1919, FDR even endorsed Hoover claiming “There could not be a finer one”
The problem for Hoover was that the only Democrat he knew growing up was the town drunk, so he ran as a Republican.
All right sorry for nitpicking – but I must correct you on this.
Hoover was a a self-described progressive and reformer, however the Democrats at the time were actually the conservatives that would block most of the party. A huge reason why La Follette chose to make a run for President was because he noticed the change in the Republican Party where they picked up a much conservative candidate, Calvin Coolidge where neither the Democratic Candidate or the Republican Candidate didn’t have any difference in values or even opinions because they were both trying to appeal to the improvised south which was suffering ever since the Reconstruction Era – which was by far definitely still a sore spot for them. (and still is since they never made a ‘proper’ recovery until World War II.)
A reason why the shift in the party happened was partially because FDR, who finally switched turned around that stalemate between the the parties choosing the democrats to slowly lean left. However, it was not completely him because there were still liberal republicans and conservative democrats – and it didn’t cause the full complete switch until our Senator McCarthy started the bang that created the Red Scare which distinctively stuck those parties into the roles. (I could go on that maybe it was even Harry S. Truman who started it, but it was McCarthy that made that ripple that actually helping anyone in need was communist mentality.)
I could even go on about how progressives actually broke apart as well into smaller groups, I know even Teddy Roosevelt and La Follette who were both progressives had their arguments about certain things – particularly World War I.
Basically, the Progressives were actually mostly part of the Republican Party for the most part or were an offshoot of it. This is the reason why a lot of people from other countries get confused with us, because our parties actually did a giant turn around.
T,
I had a phone call so I cut my post short. Thanks for expanding on the point I was attempting to make, which was the Republican party different than today’s Republican party. For example, FDR’s VP, Gardner accused Hoover of taking the U.S down the path of socialism. In other words, attempting to connect Paul Ryan to Hoover is simply absurd.
You’re actually on the money on this one. Let’s not forget that the founder of what we consider to be the progressive movement in America was actually a Republican – Sen. Bob La Follette – so the idea of a progressive Republican isn’t actually that strange.
There’s also issues of Hoover and FDR being ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ because liberal and conservative had different connotations at the time as well.
If we go by the logic of a liberal during that time? It was often universal with using the term of political equality, free speech, free assembly, free press, and equality of opportunity. Were as conservatives as the time didn’t want to give those said rights. So often when ‘liberal’ was used at that time, it was in terms of social rights and not terms of government policy.
What does this mean? This means what when they say Herbert Hoover was a liberal, in terms of humanitarianism, civil rights and so on.
However, in terms of economics? Herbert Hoover and his administration were conservatives believing that the government should not have hands in the catastrophe that happened in the similar way that Calvin Coolidge was. This does not mean Calvin Coolidge was a conservative either in terms of civil liberties however since he was all for rights for minorities. But while Herbert Hoover was a Progressive for Social Rights, this was not the case for the government which was badly needed at the time.
Herbert Hoover however, towards the end of his term and sadly realized too late realized the government had to step in and he couldn’t go by the logic of businesses alone and cutting government spending. He realized a little too late that he was damaging the infrastructure of the economy, which is why towards the end of his term he tried to creative initiatives, public work projects but ended up overspending.
It’s kind of ironic either way since I’ve read that FDR had a similar approach with the New Deal that Hoover had towards the end of the Presidency. La Follette was a guy who knew his economics extremely well, and saw the problem with the economy which was a reason why he wanted to run because I remember reading that he was predicting a crash if the United States kept going down that path the other two candidates had planned. (chances are though, even if he was elected president though, he would have died within a year when he went into office even if we do go down that route of thought.)
T,
In terms of economics, Hoover was pro-regulation and anti- Lassiez faire. Consider his American Individualism Essay:
“We have also learned that fair division can only be obtained by certain restrictions on the strong and the dominant.…”
http://wps.prenhall.com/wps/media/objects/108/110605/ch23_a4_d1.pdf
I’m aware of that actually but there was another factor into this: he feared that too much intervention or coercion by the government would destroy individuality and self-reliance. Which he (and many others still do, including myself) considered to be important American values when the country needed help the most.
To be honest, Hoover probably wanted to do more but his administration wouldn’t allow him because they had a very ‘leave it alone’ approach – one he actually disliked greatly which may explain the dramatic change towards the end of his presidency. (I feel a degree of pity for the guy honestly, it sounds like his ideals were more or less told to shove it.)
That being said, the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act was a terrible decision.
Actually I would disagree about Smoot-Hawley. Imports were such a small percentage of our economy that in reality it did not really effect anything. It did however give people something to blame though as a scapegoat.
I personally would slap go back and slap tariffs on most things entering the US again!
And then the countries that we export would do the same on our goods, which would destroy the benefit of devaluing our currency in the first place.
Most countries do have huge tariffs on our products already so that point is mute.
So you agree with Ryan that we shouldn’t take actions that will devalue the currency?
I always get amazed by republican revisionist history. Hoover was no where near a progressive. The original depression was brought on the same reason as this great recession was 30 years of republican rule.
You might want to label yourself a revisionist by way of changing Bruce Murphy’s first name to Chris.
Everyone makes mistakes now and again…..thanks for visiting.
Speaking of revision, I think the easiest way to shape a discussion is to prevent some people from entering the discussion. What’s your policy on rejecting comments at FoxPolitics? I made a salient comment the other day and it never appeared. Why?
She did the same thing to a comment of mine John. I am perpetually amazed that people who run for office are unable to discuss the issues anytime anyplace with anyone.
Thanks Zach!