War on Poverty Part II: The Great Depression

The United States of America changed the world. The American experiment, launched by its Founders, revolutionized how the world viewed personal freedom, government, business, culture, commerce — everything. It set an example for liberty that captured the world’s envy and imagination. In short, the American experiment worked.

It worked so well that the poverty rate went from 90 percent in colonial America to 14.3 percent today. Some would argue the War On Poverty lowered that rate and not American exceptionalism. They would be wrong. The poverty rate before Lyndon Johnson and the Welfare Act was actually lower than today — 14 percent.

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During the crash of 1920, the hands-off policies of President Harding’s administration allowed the free market to correct itself and send America into the Roaring Twenties. In 1929, there was a completely different approach.

Government intrusion and welfare programs increased exponentially after Franklin Roosevelt’s election in 1932. Rather than help end the depression, his actions actually deepened it. Americans who had seen tough times before had never seen anything like this.

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In March of that same year, FDR signed the Emergency Banking Act into law and the FDIC was born. He also ordered the nation off the gold standard. Then came the Civilian Conservation Corp, the Federal Emergency Relief Action, the National Industrial Recovery Act, the National Labor Board, the Tennessee Valley Authority, the Glass-Steagall Act, the Soil Erosion Service, the Civil Works Administration, Works Progress Administration, the Wagner National Labor Relations Act and the Social Security Act — all by 1935.

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By 1937, five years after FDR took office, the percentage of Americans living in poverty had hit 45 percent. That same year, frustrated and beaten down workers at Republic Steel’s south Chicago plant and their families tried to combine a picnic with a rally and demonstration. Chicago Police moved in and opened fire on the crowd. Ten people were killed and a dozen more wounded in what is now called the Memorial Day Massacre. [read more]

Yea, instead of making poverty less the Left make it more. But then again they have good intentions.

There are two other parts to this series:

• War on Poverty Part III: The Great Society
• War on Poverty Part IV: Abusing the System