Quote:
Originally Posted by Ohioprof
I'll just respond briefly to your broad point here. I will argue to you that government spending DID work to pull the country out of the depression. The fact that decreasing government spending sank the economy is evidence of this.
|
It is evidence it does nothing to fix an economy though as that kind of increased spending is unsustainable. Your argument basically amounts to someone saying you can fix your money troubles by paying them off with a credit card or getting a money advance. A temporary solution is just not a solution..even more so when it risks even bigger consequences such as inflation.
Quote:
|
It's clear that the government spending of the New Deal was a step in the right direction, but the economy was so far down, the spending wasn't enough. The far greater spending on World War II was enough to end the Depression and to create a labor shortage, not a labor surplus.
|
The logic doesn't follow. You admit that once government spending went down the economy went down. Well later the economy went back up but it wasn't because an increase in government spending, it was an increase for demand of US products. What caused the increase in demand was basically the fact that no other production facilities were around. The government spending was irrelevant....assuming WWII could have been won without us spending a dime we would have had the same economic benefit.
In other words you could have government spending continually increase and your economy would look better but at some point that bill is due and you can't tax people 100% and you can't borrow money indefinitely. The second that spending is gone the people are left with nothing because no growth really existed and no demand was created. This is evidenced with the New Deal and WWII....government spending went down and the economy tanked, demand for goods and services went up and our economy did well. Providing goods and services is much more sustainable than government spending.
Quote:
|
Bush is to blame for starting an unnecessary war that cost enormous sums of money and cost the lives of many thousands of people. The Democrats in Congress are at fault to the extent that so many went along with Bush's war, at least at the beginning. That was a major mistake. Now that Bush is gone, we have to clean up the mess he left.
|
Oh give me a break, the war isn't going to cut us nearly as much as these ridiculous stimulus plans and the war had little to do with the economy we are in now.