I wonder how many people know this. Before the great Depression conservative fiscal policy reigned. The riches Americans enjoyed the lowest tax rate, they had ever and would ever have, at 25%. We put a lot of faith in the free market to mend a slowing economy and that faith lead to its collapse. While drought did add to this, it was not the cause the economy slowed long before the rain did.
It was a progressive that offered the new deal, and things got better we started to look out for one another. a logical solution to a problem that confronted us all, not a bleeding heart.

Good point in a way as even though the 20's appeared to be thriving there were a lot of inner problems that led to the depression.

Thank God the economy of the 21st century has matured well beyond what it was 80 YEARS AGO!!

So now we are going to bash historical Conservatism? Gimme a freaking break. And the 16th Amendment had only been ratified the decade prior. So please don't give me the rich killed us then they'll kill us now analogy. The Government has NEVER seen the tax revenues like they have the past few years. BECAUSE of the tax cuts. Give the people the money they earn and they will grow the economy more than FDR ever hoped to with handouts.

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"Civilization is mortally wounded and something truly evil is being born to take its place." - Stephen Coonts novel "The Traitor"

Best recent book: - "Protect and Defend" by Vince Flynn

There were other issues that caused the great depression, two much more pronouced issues. After WW1, we gave a bill to Germany to make them pay us back for what they cost us for fighting the war. While we waited for their check to clear, we took out debt from foriegn nations to bring us back to where we were prior, than Germany's check bounced and we had no money to pay back the debt to other nations that we lended money from, and had to pay it back. That was done (like the germans) by just making more dollar bills, which causes the value of the dollar to go down and the value of everthing else to go up, this caused the stock market to spiral out of control and get to what happened.

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

Where did you get that? Before the bush cuts there was a surplus after a deficit. sure tax cuts sound like a great idea but historically they do not help the economy as much as conservatives suggest.

Also there were more then the few causes i mentioned but the fact remains they tried tax cuts and to let the market fix the problem and it just got worse.

finally I think that most of the advancements made in the past 50 years were helped along buy government spending. I wonder if we give all the tax money back to the people who earn it witch ones will be kind enough to build roads, educate the poor, offer a defense to people charged with a crime, subsidize business so that we don't pay 5 dollars for a gallon of milk, and all the other thousands of things it takes to keep the economy and the nation stable.

Just regarding the subsidies bit, we are paying $5.00 a gallon (or however much it is speculated to be), just half of it is though out taxes and half at the store. So it actually hurts thoughs that don't like milk, and helps thoughs that do (like me, I drink 3 gallons a week). But the money for that subsidy comes from taxes which comes from our pocket.

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Set your destination with your heart, get there with your mind.

"The wisest men follow their own direction." - Euripides

That's good koolaid you are drinking there.

Btw, the Great Depression began under Herbert Hoover in case you were curious - it is obvious you've never actually studied the topic you presume to lecture us on.

It is also generally understood that a cyclical recession was turned into a depression by President Hoover's 'tight money' and 'high tariff' policy enacted as the recession began. Hoover of course applied standard conservative economic policy - and the Great Depression is what resulted.

oh this is rich!

Hoover, a Republican (well depending on what party was winning that year) Was always a strong friend of business. and 'tight money' and 'high tariff' were both conservative leaning policy's.

And there are a lot of contrasting ideas as to the different factors that caused the depression. All that said by todays standards he was a fiscal conservative. who believed the free market would fix the problems that caused the depression. and at every step things got worse with that thinking.

If you have never run in to the link between conservative fiscal policy and the depression, you sir have no place questioning my research.

I am not an economist but i have read enough about the subject to know that there are economist who have commented on it before me.

I agree. It wasn't conservatism that started the depression. It was progressivism that ended it, however.

And your supply-side stuff is, with all due respect, crap.

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"Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states...Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."



~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I digress here and will offer that it wasn't Newt Gingrich that started the depression this was supposed to be more of an intellectual discussion between progressive and conservative fiscal polociy not so polorising