Book Review: New Deal Or Raw Deal

Book:
http://books.simonandschuster.com/New-Deal-or-Raw-Deal/Burton-W-Folsom-Jr/9781416592228

Major Points:
FDR prolonged the Great Depression by mismanaged the New Deal. 
The economic principles subscribed to by those who set up New Deal policies where incorrect.
Efforts made by the New Deal were ineffective and or harmful
FDR could have/ should have done more
Most attempts to correct the Depression were short-sighted- i.e. instead of bridge we should have been making other things.

My Agreements
FDR should have done more

My Disagreements
Hindsight is always 20/20
If FDR could have/ should have done more then people like Folsom who opposed FDR on these grounds should not have opposed him so vigorously
Most attempts to correct the Depression where short sighted. 

Thoughts
First, I have waited WAY to long to get this started.   I have been doing other things and forgot I had created this page.
My first and only agreement with Mr. Folsom is that FDR should have done more to help the economic side of the Great Depression.  He tried a variety of things to help socially, which did help him get elected, but not has much on economic policy.  FDR did however see that if he did not get re-elected he would not have to worry about the Depression so I can understand this point.  You have to have a job to do a job.  Too people would not have understood. 

One of my major disagreements, and the only that I will really flesh out, is the idea Folsom makes about the short-sightedness of the New Deal.  Mr. Folsom is an trained economist, where I only teach economics to 8th graders, and he can dissect the economic impact that the New Deal had, but I think he misses the key point of the New Deal.  It was after all a social AND economic program designed to bring the country out of the Great Depression.  Mr. Folsom often has a quote (or I think it is a quote..I'm listening to this book) about to the point that instead of bridges being built, and piano lessons to children on relief, the economy should have been producing.

My response to this comes in his dissection of The Tennessee Valley Authority.  Having grown up in a town the benefited significantly from the TVA, I feel the criticism offered by Mr. Folsom is in itself short-sighted.  While the point that 98% of Americans where paying to subsidize 2% of American's power, the point is nearly moot when considering the after effects of having power in the Tennessee Valley. 

The obvious example of power in the Tennessee Valley would be the expansion of the Oak Ridge Nuclear testing area in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.  It did house the Manhattan Project that did help complete the Nuclear Bombs.  This is an overwhelming example, but I would like to go back to the fact that my hometown benefited greatly from TVA.  My hometown was able to attract George Eastman to buy what was at the time a struggling pulp mill and turn it into only of the largest chemical companies in the world.  It produced, as Mr. Folsom suggests, throughout the Great Depression.  Aside from the actual production, it produced a relatively erudite population that has, for a town it's size, produced a good deal.  On my reading it seemed a success under the premise that Mr. Folsom sets.

A second point of contention, and this will be brief, is the idea that 98% of Americans might pay for 2% of Americans.  This too me is completely moot.  Yes, some farmer in Iowa helped pay for the dam to be built so that my great-grand parents could have power in Tennessee through the TVA, but I would argue that it is very possible for my great-grand parents may very well have help put fertilizer on his crops through the AAA.  It was no different then as it is now.  Mr. Folsom should have an understanding of "public goods and services" (my 8th graders do) and know that they are goods and services not otherwise provided by the private sector.  I do not benefit directly from fuel being put in a Humvee on an Army base in Kabul, but I do benefit from the protection afforded me by the military. 

It is these programs that made those Americans that lived through the Depression appreciate the American government, and ultimatley want to fight for it during World War Two. Yes they helped someone they did not know, but they go help to.  My opinion is, and this is free, we need more programs like those set up by The New Deal