Harry Hopkins had it right!

I saw on a friend's Facebook page the other day that "Economic Stimulus plans are unconstitutional" and "The 'panics' of the 19th Century were short-lived." My response: "It's interesting that you point to the 'Panics' (really Depressions) of the 19th Century as evidence for your claims. Though you maintain they were short-lived (apparently as a result of any and all government intervention in the "Glorious Free Market") let me go back in time to a rather more recent period, and quote Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Federal Emergency Management Administrator, Harry Hopkins. Regarding the more than 3000 writers and artists helped extensively by the New Deal, Hopkins quipped: "Hell! they've got to eat just like other people." How true! Starving people, of whom there were a surprisingly large number in the 1930s, had to eat right THEN, not a couple years down the road. Indeed, we all have to eat, and recessions/depressions and "panics" as they were called back in 1837 often lead to overall economic downturns lasting for several years:" http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071001164354AApUblEstarted this off with a digression. But what I really want to confront is the unsubstatiated contention that economic stimulus programs are illegitimate. Let's take as our paramount example the most well-known stimulus program of all, the New Deal of (roughly) 1933-1940. First, let's begin by conceding that the USA had been in Depression since 1930 (the agricultural sector, actually suffered through a terrible and prolonged farm crisis throughout most of the 1920s, but that's grist for another argument) when FDR was inaugurated on March 4, 1933. FDR's predecessor Herbert Hoover had displayed a disgracefully inept and callous attitude to the widespread joblessness and suffering across the land. Examples: employing army units under Douglas MacArthur to drive out the "Bonus Marchers" (please google) encamped in Washington, and doing far too little far too late to allieviate the plight of those living in miserable, tar-paper "Hoovervilles." Hoover was so unpopular during that era of official 25-33% unemployment, he had tomatoes thrown at him during a speech in Detroit. The Capitol was surrounded by armed troops, a bit like these days, but that's another digression. Suffice to say, the country was largely overjoyed when the New Dealers moved into the White House. What was the New Dealers' answer? Well, one of an admittedly bewildering array of New Deal programs was the Civil Works Administration, or C.W.A. It ended up employing 4,264,000 people. It built or improved 40,000 schools; laid 12,000,000 feet of sewer pipe; it built 469 airports, and improved another 529; the C.W.A. built or improved 255,000 miles of roadway; employed 50,000 to teach adults or keep open rural schools that would have otherwise been closed; it built or improved 3,700 playgrounds and athletic fields. (see "Roosevelt And Hopkins, by Robert E. Sherwood, Harper & Brothers, P. 57 Copyright 1948): http://books.google.com/books?id=24cGAQAAIAAJ&q=roosevelt+and+hopkins&dq=roosevelt+and+hopkins&source=bl&ots=8DMYcEv1gO&sig=YAoKlgjFf46zI6tHwmjlXM9xUbU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=9iQCUMmoJ4rArQG_jbmxDA&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAARoosevelt and Hopkins books.google.com. Meanwhile, all through this period, and especially during the earliest days of the Great Depression, the rich minority stubbornly refused to spend any substantial part of their fortunes in a productive manner. The "Magical Hand" of Private Enterprise remained idle while banks failed, wiping out the life-savings of untold hundreds of thousands. Factories were shuttered, resulting in untold millions of men and women losing jobs. Nobody knows even how many children went hungry. I won't even address in this comment how the Depression itself was brought about by Avaricious American Capitalism, whose stock market encouraged millions to invest irresponsibly on "Margin." But check this out: http://www.amazon.com/The-Pecora-Report-Practices-Commission/dp/1449523226The Pecora Report: The 1934 Report on the Practices of Stock Exchanges from the "Pecora Commission" www.amazon.com