New Deal

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Dems, Not GOP, Are Party of Big Business
 Dems, Not GOP, Are 
 Party of Big Business 
JONAH GOLDBERG
Dec 8, 2009 11:55 AM CST

Dems, Not GOP, Are Party of Big Business

Anti-free market reform is the only thing keeping fat cats alive

(Newser) - The idea that the GOP is the “party of big business” is a convenient fabrication, Jonah Goldberg writes, that handily deflects blame from the progressives who have historically been in bed with the fat cats—particularly the health care industry. Just look at GE during the Great Depression, when...

Put New Stimulus to Work for Unemployed

Painful 'new normal' isn't good enough

(Newser) - Economists are buzzing about a "new normal" of higher unemployment and wage stagnation post-recession, but Americans shouldn't resign themselves to a mediocre economy, writes Harold Meyerson. Downturns triggered by banking crises usually cause higher rates of unemployment for longer periods than normal downturns, but the cycle can be broken...

Learn From FDR, Obama, and Show Some Backbone

Roosevelt biographer says president needs to block out GOP

(Newser) - As President Obama prepares to pull away from a public health care option, it shows not just that he's giving in to his opponents, writes Jean Edward Smith; worse, it "suggests that the Democratic Party has forgotten how to govern." In an op-ed for the New York Times,...

Dems Must Reconnect to Populist Soul

Democrats are afraid to say that government can do good: Frank

(Newser) - To save health care reform, Democrats need to remember what the real issue is: making the government work for average people, writes Thomas Frank for the Wall Street Journal. Health care is the Democrats' signature issue because it is quintessentially populist—a leveling of the playing field in the name...

Anti-New Deal Book Is GOP's New Bible

Republicans flock to The Forgotten Man in fight over stimulus

(Newser) - For the Republican Party, looking for any kind of traction for its opposition to President Obama’s stimulus spending, anti-New Deal book The Forgotten Man is a godsend, Politico reports. Author Amity Shlaes suggests, in what some call revisionist history, that FDR’s plan, pushed by government bureaucrats on a...

Dream Small, America
 Dream Small, America 
OPINION
Mar 13, 2009 11:45 AM CDT

Dream Small, America

Most of us will never achieve the impossible; we'd be better off admitting it

(Newser) - The American dream sounds great, but the relentless pursuit of "whatever glitters beyond the edge of our means" is doing us no favors, Frederic Morton writes in the LA Times. "Our passion for the out-of-reach is the very dynamic that (to use a long- familiar phrase) 'has made...

Arts Need a New Deal, Too
 Arts Need a New Deal, Too 
OPINION
Jan 21, 2009 7:40 PM CST

Arts Need a New Deal, Too

Cultural anthropologist suggests President Obama appoint arts cabinet

(Newser) - Fifty years after FDR’s Public Works Art Project paid and promoted American talent, President Obama has people dreaming of a new deal for arts, cultural anthropologist Patricia Williams Lessane writes in Ebony. While division spawned the Harlem Renaissance, Lessane is hopeful an arts resurgence would be “born out...

FDR 'Prolonged' the Depression? Come On
FDR 'Prolonged' the Depression? Come On
analysis
Jan 2, 2009 11:29 PM CST

FDR 'Prolonged' the Depression? Come On

(Newser) - Fox News left one pundit scrambling for his history books last week after he dared to defend the New Deal. Supporting Congressional talk of a stimulus plan, David Sirota sat "mouth agape, deer in the headlights" as a commentator accused FDR's plan of prolonging the Great Depression. Sirota disagreed,...

Bailout Success Will Teach Wrong Lesson
Bailout Success Will Teach Wrong Lesson
OPINION
Jan 1, 2009 5:03 AM CST

Bailout Success Will Teach Wrong Lesson

Rescuing firms from mess they created will send message that bills don't need to be paid

(Newser) - America needs to learn some hard lessons that a $700 billion bailout of the economy isn't going to teach, David Ignatius writes in the Washington Post. If the the country manages to dodge a depression, the message will be that irresponsible behavior brings a rescue, and that bills don't need...

Obama Must Be a Goo-Goo: Krugman
Obama Must Be a Goo-Goo:
Krugman
OPINION
Dec 26, 2008 9:07 AM CST

Obama Must Be a Goo-Goo: Krugman

That's a good-government wonk, much like FDR

(Newser) - Bill Clinton once declared that “the era of big government is over.” Barack Obama can’t do that, writes Paul Krugman of the New York Times. “Indeed, he has to be a goo-goo.” Goo-goo being a century-old term for “good government” proponents. FDR, for example,...

New Deal a Good Example, But Not Perfect

Obama must have 'audacity' FDR lacked

(Newser) - With the economy on the rocks, the New Deal is a hot topic. But FDR’s master plan almost failed, Paul Krugman writes in the New York Times, because "his economic policies were too cautious." In the end, "what saved the economy, and the New Deal, was...

Public Works Eyed as Economic Jumpstart

Economists increasingly look to infrastructure spending for job creation

(Newser) - Once dismissed as too slow to address America’s quick slide into crisis, New Deal-esque public works projects are becoming increasingly attractive as long-term economic troubles look likely to set in, the Los Angeles Times reports. Infrastructure spending will likely be a major component of the upcoming Obama-backed, multibillion-dollar stimulus...

Obama's First 100: Channel FDR, Avoid Clinton Foibles

Democrats hoping for 'new New Deal,' but financial crisis will be drag on any efforts

(Newser) - Up big in the polls with Election Day fast approaching, “a lot of people around Barack are reading books about FDR’s first 100 days,” one Obama insider tells New York. Aides have gone beyond simply planning his White House transition; they’ve drafted a book-length administration blueprint,...

McCain's Housing Rescue Plan: What Is It? Is It New?

Candidate surprises with question-laden bailout proposal

(Newser) - John McCain’s proposal to bail out homeowners by buying up their troubled mortgages, the only policy surprise in last night’s debate, left observers scrambling to understand how it was—if it was—different from the Treasury’s existing bailout plan. The proposal, fleshed out by the campaign, would...

FDIC May Need Its Own Bailout
FDIC May Need Its Own Bailout
ANALYSIS
Oct 2, 2008 1:49 PM CDT

FDIC May Need Its Own Bailout

Agency lacks funds to insure present level, much less proposed raise to $250K

(Newser) - The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation has quietly and effectively done its job safeguarding Americans’ money since 1933, but the financial crisis will thrust the agency into the spotlight, reports Big Money, Slate’s financial offshoot. The bailout bill increases the amount the FDIC insures, from $100,000 to $250,000,...

Left Has Won (Whoever Wins)
 Left Has Won (Whoever Wins) 
analysis
Jun 10, 2008 2:55 PM CDT

Left Has Won (Whoever Wins)

The conservative counter-revolution has failed

(Newser) - After 4 decades, the conservative revolution launched by the likes of Goldwater and Buckley is not only washed up, Michael Lind writes in Salon, it  failed "completely, undeniably and irreversibly." The structure of 20th-century American liberalism is intact, if battered, he writes, and liberals should stop worrying so...

Dem Primaries: A Referendum on Clintonism
Dem Primaries: A Referendum on Clintonism
OPINION
Dec 23, 2007 7:29 AM CST

Dem Primaries: A Referendum on Clintonism

Bill's legacy, deeper than memory tells, will decide the nominee

(Newser) - The Democratic presidential primary contest will be “a judgment on the ‘90s,” writes the New York Times’ Matt Bai: The left is deeply conflicted about Bill Clinton and his "third way," and Hillary's “fortunes are bound up with his,” Bai says. "They...

Call Me Russian FDR: Putin
Call Me Russian FDR: Putin
Oct 19, 2007 3:43 AM CDT

Call Me Russian FDR: Putin

Presenting himself as popular US prez to stay in power

(Newser) - Vladimir Putin sees himself as Russia's Franklin Delano Roosevelt and is actively encouraging a cult around the Depression-slaying US leader to promote his own ambitions after his current term as president expires. Admiring profiles and documentaries about Roosevelt in the state-controlled media are indoctrinating Russians as Putin maneuvers to stay...

The Rise and Fall of Rove
The Rise and Fall of Rove
Aug 14, 2007 10:15 AM CDT

The Rise and Fall of Rove

Boy genius couldn't build an unbeatable GOP coalition

(Newser) - Karl Rove may have been the but-for cause of the Bush presidency, but his dreams of using it to build a generation-long Republican hegemony that would undo the New Deal have been unquestionably dashed. Bush's boy genius envisioned a "permanent majority," but the Washington Post considers the reasons...

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