The only thing we have to fear is fear itself

Of the many talking points of the GOP these days is the one that says World War II ended the depression, not the actions of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. There are two major flaws i this too often heard talking point. First, FDR's New Deal programs did an awful lot to combat the Great Depression, and second, World War II amounted to a giant federal stimulus program. Federal spending seems to be A OK with the GOP if it's defense spending.

Let's look at the numbers. Here are the unemployment numbers 1933 to 1945. 1933 (24.9 percent unemployment rate), 1934 (21.7), 1935 (20.1), 1936 (16.9), 1937 (14.3), 1938 (19.0), 1939 (17.2), 1940 (14.6), 1941 (9.7), 1942 (4.7), 1943 (1.9), 1944 (1.2), 1945 (1.9).

Here are the budget outlay and deficit numbers for those years. 1933 (4.6 billion), (2.6 billion); 1934 (6.5), (3.5); 1935 (6.4), (2.8); 1936 (8.2), (4.3); 1937 (7.5), (2.1); 1938 (6.8), (89 million); 1939 (9.1), (2.8); 1940 (9.4), (2.9); 1941 (13.6), (4.9); 1942 (35.1), (20.5); 1943 (78.6), (54.5); 1944 (91.3), (47.5); 1945 (92.7), (47.5).

So when we look at the numbers, the greatest recovery in employment numbers came with the massive federal spending on World War II. So in a sense the GOP is right. World War II put and end to the Great Depression, but World War II was, in effect, a massive government work project. Perhaps the reason we saw only an unemployment reduction for 24.9 percent to 9.7 percent was the fact that FDR did not go far enough. Unemployment practically disappeared by 1945. Massive government spending creates jobs, period.

The other major talking point of the GOP is lower taxes create jobs. If this were true, how is it that the unprecedented economic prosperity we saw from 1945 to 1960 was accomplished with a top marginal tax rate of between 88 and 91 percent?