Seven years of Franklin Roosevelt and what was the unemployment rate -- 20 percent. At the time Roosevelt was sworn in, unemployment was 25 percent -- the worst level in American history. Roosevelt's last year as a peace time president was scarcely much better. Is this our future?
Burt and Anita Folsom tell the Roosevelt story succintly on the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal this morning. It's worth a read.
The Obama economic program is, in many ways, worse than Roosevelt's. Roosevelt's programs, by and large, commanded popular support. Nothing in Obama's agenda, domestic or foreign, commands popular support. Even now, polls show that 55 percent of the American public are opposed to the recently enacted health care legislation.
What about the economy? If the temporary census workers had not filled the gap last month, the unemployment rate would have risen back above the double digit level. Now, public employees, no longer protected by the so-called "stimulus" package, will be laid off in droves in states that teeter on bankruptcy. California and New York are in the headlines, but the majority of states are in similar straits.
Now what?
Obama has run out of bullets and now we pay the piper. Economic stagnation and a growing federal bureacracy are our future. Hope and Change?
