“We are spending more money than we have ever spent
before, and it does not work. ... I want to see this country prosperous. I want
to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never
made good on our promises. ... I say after eight years of this administration
we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... and an enormous debt,
to boot."
No, it is not a contemporary conservative complaining that
Keynesian economics will not work. It was the Treasury Secretary to
Roosevelt in his testimony to Congress in May 1939;TEN YEARS AFTER THE
DEPRESSION BEGAN. [Courtesy to Yelnick for recalling this testimony
before Congress.]
Oh, gosh, I thought Roosevelt got credit for ending the
Great Depression by his great Keynesian spending initiatives. I guess his
own Treasury Secretary didn’t believe the depression was over in
1939. Keynesian economics, fiscal and monetary spending, didn’t
work in 10 years back then? But it’ll work this time? And we’re
already seeing the ‘green shoots’ of the new $3T deficit spending
working…..in just 2 months?
And now we’ve yet to start paying for Roosevelt’s
biggest legacy; Social Security and the related $50T unfunded liability to pay
soon to retire SS recipients. The Fed’s leveraging its balance
sheet by $2T was chump change. What the US owes China and Japan together
is chump change. Social Security and Medicare are the $2T gorillas in the
corner. If anyone thinks they’ll cash out their SS, well they need
to have been collecting it for the last 15 years already. If you haven’t
started collecting yet, well, don’t give up your day job any time soon;
at least not until you’re about 90.