Work in progress — cycles are added one at a time. Every quote is machine-verified against an archived source; follow the links to read it.
1936 › Franklin D. Roosevelt (Democratic) › Level of federal spending
Defense of the eight-billion-dollar deficit as an investment in America
defense_of_recorddirectional_stancecandidate_directevidence A Federal Budget & SpendingRelief, Welfare & Social Insurance similar solutions · similar reasoning
Solution
Justify the net debt increase as the price of averting starvation and concentration of property, offset by six billion in new assets; the debt will be paid out of rising national income, not oppressive taxation.
Rationale
'To balance our budget in 1933 or 1934 or 1935 would have been a crime against the American people'; 'humanity came first.'
Statements (2)
To balance our budget in 1933 or 1934 or 1935 would have been a crime against the American people. To do so we should either have had to make a capital levy that would have been confiscatory, or we should have had to set our face against human suffering with callous indifference. When Americans suffered, we refused to pass by on the other side. Humanity came first.
This debt is not going to be paid by oppressive taxation on future generations. It is not going to be paid by taking away the hard-won savings of the present generation.
Follow-through
not_applicable
A defense of the record rather than a pledge. Its premise -- that deficits would fall as income rose -- was tested by the 1937-38 recession and the April 1938 spending program; see 1936-fdr-balance-budget-from-rising-income.
Other positions on this issue
- Cut the cost of the federal government by at least 25 percent — Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1932 specific_pledge
- Cut federal spending $1.5 billion below fiscal 1932 and reorganize the executive branch — Herbert Hoover, 1932 specific_pledge
- Reduce the expenses of government as relief needs decline — Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1936 directional_stance
1936-fdr-deficits-were-an-investment · created by claude-fable-5-1 · review: unreviewed