I wish conservatarians would stop pretending that the New Deal made the Depression worse.
I suppose it’s not surprising that the folks who deny that anthropogenic global warming is a real problem also believe that the New Deal made the Great Depression worse. And I suppose it would be unreasonable to hope that they would listen to reason.
The moral of the story of the 30s is that if FDR had been more Keynesian and less committed to balancing the budget, the country would have recovered faster, as it did when the huge fiscal stimulus called World War II hit. Fortunately, Barack Obama seems to be listening to people who, having studied history, prefer not to repeat it.
Author: Mark Kleiman
Professor of Public Policy at the NYU Marron Institute for Urban Management and editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis. Teaches about the methods of policy analysis about drug abuse control and crime control policy, working out the implications of two principles: that swift and certain sanctions don't have to be severe to be effective, and that well-designed threats usually don't have to be carried out.
Books:
Drugs and Drug Policy: What Everyone Needs to Know (with Jonathan Caulkins and Angela Hawken)
When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment (Princeton, 2009; named one of the "books of the year" by The Economist
Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results (Basic, 1993)
Marijuana: Costs of Abuse, Costs of Control (Greenwood, 1989)
UCLA Homepage
Curriculum Vitae
Contact: Markarkleiman-at-gmail.com
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