Franklin D. Roosevelt vs. Barack Obama
Franklin D. Roosevelt vs. Barack Obama The economy of the 1930s was a devastating financial situation that the American public will never forget. However, this doesn’t mean that history will cease to repeat itself. The political policies of Franklin Delano Roosevelt are often acknowledged for the relief of our country’s depression and some of which are still in effect today. To avoid our current recession, will Barack Obama choose to base his policies off of FDR’s in hopes that the same plan will work twice? There are some similarities and differences between the political action today and the action during the Great Depression. Within just the first 99 days of his election as President, Roosevelt’s New Deal was put into action with the support of Congress. The New Deal was proposed to help relieve those who were unemployed or in danger of losing their homes and recover agriculture and business. Programs such as the Tennessee Valley Authority, Social Security, and Medicare were created because of Roosevelt’s action in the Great Depression. Herbert Hoover, the preceding president, did not feel that government spending should be given directly to citizens. He believed that ‘helping’ the American people in this way would actually hurt their morale and cause them to become more like a socialist nation. Certain ideas such as enforcing fixed pricing, controlling businesses, and manipulating the value of currency were suggested and quickly declined by Hoover who believed all were Socialist ideas. Though many people saw Hoover as an evil man that refused to give away federal money, he was actually quite accurate with his predictions. For example, Welfare, which is a program used today that was created in the New Deal, is often misused today by people who are capable of working, but are too lazy to actually make their own income source. I believe that a lot of Americans today are spoon fed because of the government ‘help’ that they receive. Though Roosevelt did help