Throughout
American history there has always been a tremendous debate about the influences
of government and how large it should be. It is one of the major differences
between political parties and stirs controversy with every election. This is an
important subject because it is not only an important topic of debate within
society, but it also has tremendous influence over the function and structure
of the country.
Since
the Great Depression, much big government spending/programs has revolved around
New Deal Policy set by former President Roosevelt. This was a pinnacle move in
the United States’ history and has made a large impact of the direction of
political parties. Economists still debate to this day whether the New Deal or
World War 2 was the reason for the economy to bounce back after it had such a
disastrous collapse. Several people even say it was both, but the distinction
of whether or not people are for or against the New Deal and bigger government
has established modern day Democrats and Republicans.
The
notion of increasing government to help resolve issues within the United States
continues throughout American history. The administrations that have continued
such notions include former President Truman (the Fair Society), President
Johnson (the Great Society), and President Obama. These four presidents all
believed that increasing government would fix the problems at hand and by using
government effectively create equality, structure, and prosperity.
This subject is
excruciatingly important to those who research public opinion. This is a
subject brought up for every election and asks, “How much do people approve of
bigger government spending?” It also asks things as simple as “do you approve
of public
Education?” These issues are
important for every election and may even sway how people vote in an election
depending on wording and approach. During former President Roosevelt’s
campaigning, he stated what many presidential candidates stated during the time
and believed that there should be little to no government. This of course ended
up being the exact opposite and the government gained a role bigger than it
ever had before.
During
former President Roosevelt’s administration, the role of government took on a
whole new responsibility. The New Deal began in 1933 and was driven by
desperation to fix the Great Depression. The banks had collapsed due to a lack
of investing and rapid withdrawals of account holders forcing banks to declare
bankruptcy.
Just
within a year of Franklin Roosevelt’s inauguration, a powerful conservative
opposition had launched an assault on the new administration’s programs (Holt
27). The conservatives consistently pushed for the New Deal to be revoked because
of their strong opposition of such policy. Conservatives believed that
government could never be a substitute for the hard work and initiative of free
men (Holt 27). Even Republican politicians of the time that had endorsed many
of the Roosevelt administration’s programs commonly stated that the New Deal
was going to destroy individualism and freedom. (Holt 28). There was plenty of
open opposition to the New Deal and Roosevelt along with his administration
would continuously describe these policies as
“experimental”
since old ideologies had continuously failed the United States and something
new was needed if the United States was going to dig itself out of the Great
Depression (Holt 29).
The
Great Depression had created desperate times which resulted in desperate
measures creating policy that would temporarily be used to help the economy
bounce back. One of his legislative proposals was an economy bill that he
accompanied with a message deploring the tendency toward greater deficits and
blaming it for a variety of economic ills (Rosenman). As late as July 1933,
President Roosevelt referred to the Economy Act as “the base of the whole
recovery plan,” and the administration continued to praise itself for its
economizing activities throughout the year (Ibid). Many people showed concern
and the credibility was shaken after the president’s budget message in January
of 1934 because people saw a massive deficit approaching for the coming fiscal
year.
Debates
were a continuous thing throughout this time, but Roosevelt could not stress
enough the cooperation was absolutely essential for the country to press on and
if both political parties could not agree on these new policies to help resurge
the economy then everything would be undone and the policy would not work (Holt
33). At the heart of this initiative, according to New Dealers, lay the
National Recovory Administration, established in June 1933 (Holt 33). The NRA
did not represent a single economic strategy but rather provided a framework
within which a number of persuasions and interest groups competed for supremacy
(Hawley). It was the intention of New Dealers to create an economy that
promoted balance and somehow the various divisions of society had lost
connection with one another, which is problematic for any society and certainly
one of the contributing factors to the Great Depression.
The New Deal had tremendous influence
over the private sector that had just collapsed. As depicted by most American
historians in the 1950s, the “mixed economy” of the United States was a
superlative blend of two worlds, a system that combined rational direction, organizational
security, and stable growth with a large measure of democratic decision making,
individual liberty, and local and private initiative (Hawley 50). The private
sector was highly warped and as a result of the New Deal was interjected and
redefined in order to make the system fair while also creating a different
structure of the private sector. Of course much of the earlier policy and
political interference was viewed as tyrannical because people still had a
since of individualism and freedom which meant not having the government
intervene on your business and making decisions for you and your business.
During
the New Deal lots of policies were enacted to alleviate the substantial amount
of poverty in the United States. This was the framework for modern day welfare
programs. One of the large programs that Roosevelt considered necessary was the
Social Security Act. This program was federally driven and was to be a way for
people to set aside money for retirement. This would also create an unemployment
insurance to help those who were jobless as well as welfare benefits for the
handicapped and needy children. Instead of the money being gathered from simply
taxing the public, it was taken from payroll taxes, which would give a better
sense of savings when Social Security taxes were taken out of your paycheck
knowing that it would be given back upon retirement.
A
Gallup poll was taken in 1938 from June 11-16 regarding President Roosevelt and
his political agenda. The sample size was of 3,083 people and was conducted
face to face with the sample being adults of the United States. There are a lot
of interesting results pertaining to his administration. When asked “During the
next two years would you like to see the Roosevelt Administration be more
liberal or more conservative?” 71% answered they would like to see the
president be more conservative over the next two years. This was of course
years later after the New Deal had already made its impact, which for that time
was extremely liberal so it is no surprise that the sample would like to see
the president become more conservative.
When
asked, “Do you think the new government spending program will help businesses
out of its present slump?” 51% said it would help. When asked, “For which
president did you vote for during the presidential election in 1936?” with the
follow question “Has your attitude toward President Roosevelt changed?” and
“Are you for or against Roosevelt today?” there was a positive result for the
president with stats showing 66.6% voted for the President in 1936, 72% of the
sample’s opinion did not change about the president, and 56% of the sample
still supported the president.
In
another survey with a sample size of 3,163 taken between August 19-24 of 1939
with the sample being adults of the United States and conducted in face to face
interviews, people were asked “The Government has tried out a food stamp plan
which lets people on relief buy certain surplus farm products below their
regular selling price.
The government
makes up the difference to the merchant. Do you approve or disapprove of this
plan?” 71% of the sample said they
approve of this plan, which is a substantial approval rating for such a
program. Then the sample was asked, “Would you approve of extending this plan
to families earning less than $20 a week as well as to persons on relief?” 60%
answered “yes”.
While
analyzing these surveys, it is fair to say that there was a general approval
rating for President Roosevelt and the New Deal policies he was putting into
place. Although the food stamp program is most likely very different from
today’s, people had a high approval rating of helping those in need that needed
assistance buying food and making ends meet while also approving of the
government providing that assistance. The Roosevelt administration has taken
much criticism over time, but looking at past research and especially surveys
of people living in that time, he has constantly received approval and has been
used as a role model for many other administrations.
Jumping
further ahead to the year 1963, I analyzed another administration that had a
focus on poverty and finding a way to reduce that level. This is President
Johnson’s term and he is known for his initiative for having a “War on
Poverty”. This time period has also adopted the name “The Great Society” for
the programs developed to help eliminate poverty within the United States.
More
often than not, much of President Johnson’s administration is overshadowed by
the Vietnam War by my focus is going to be on poverty alleviation and the
development/approval of the “Great Society”. Different from the Roosevelt
administration, which was the worst economic downfall in the United States’
history, President Johnson focused on helping the poorest people in the country.
A quote taken from President Johnson on the targeted people he wanted to help
stated, “The people I want to help are the ones who’ve never held real jobs and
aren’t equipped to handle them. Most never had enough money and don’t know how
to spend it. They were born to parents who gave up hoping long ago. They have
no motivation to reach for something better because the sum total of their
lives is losing.”
The
foundation of Johnson’s strategy was a growing economy (Califano). It was
Johnson’s theory that if wages and profits increased, American’s would prosper,
job opportunities would expand sufficiently to make room for affirmative action
for blacks without threatening whites, and higher federal revenues would
finance Great Society programs without additional taxes (Califano).
One
of the large initiatives that President Johnson pushed for was federal funding
for public education. The original initiative was to secure a $1,000,000,000
congressional appropriation to fund the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (Califano).
This was an opportunity for President Johnson to acquire a substantial amount
of money that he could grant or withhold from any school district in the entire
nation. This subject is still a great topic of discussion of whether or not public
school should be locally or federally funded. President Johnson also used these
funds to help persuade state to desegregate their school (Califano). If these
states agreed to desegregate, then he would allocate funds to them to sort of
offer an “incentive” to ensure that desegregation would start to happen in the
United States. Results were positive with this initiative as the number of
black students tripled in the south in 1965, but that became irrelevant due to
the fact that the Civil Rights Act was signed into law to eliminate discrimination
(Califano).
Another
large initiative that was passed during the President Johnson’s administration was
amendments to the Social Security Act. These amendments were enacted July 30,
1965 and resulted in the creation of Medicare and Medicaid. These were the
first social healthcare systems of the United States and were created for the
elderly and the poor. This was of course an expansion of President Roosevelt’s
Social Security Act, but the original act did not include social healthcare for
American citizens.
Another
substantial act that President Johnson charged at was the Economic Opportunity
Act of 1964. The law created the Office of Economic Opportunity aimed at
attacking the roots of American poverty and created a Job Corps to provide
valuable vocational training (ushistory.org). The program established the Volunteers
in Service to America, or VISTA, which was set up as a domestic Peace Corps
providing services in impoverished American regions, which would now receive
volunteer teaching. This was part of President Johnson’s “War on Poverty” and
was a way for people to work and get training while also helping regions filled
with poverty and is still a strong chapter of AmeriCorps to this day.
For President Johnson’s
presidential administration I analyzed different initiatives that President
Johnson funded. In a Gallup Poll taken from November 20-25 of 1964 with a
sample size of 3,531 and the sample being adults of the United States of
America. When asked, “In general, what are your overall feelings about welfare
and relief programs?” 50% responded in favor while the rest had no response in
one response, less than 10% stated that they disapprove, and less than 10% also
stated that people take advantage/it costs too much money and is a waste.
At
this time, 69% of the sample approved of President Johnson and how he was
handling his job as president. When asked about the amount of funds that go
toward welfare, 1149 stated that the right amount of money was being spent for
welfare, 720 said too much, 652 said not enough, and 1001 said they were not
sure. When it came to “Great Society” initiatives and the effectiveness of
policy to help those in need, President Johnson also had a positive response,
even when condition were not as rough as they were during the Great Depression.
Looking
at my last administration, President Obama, we can continue to look at similar
enactments and policies targeted to help stimulate the economy and provide
services to the United States when facing a recession. One of President Obama’s
An initiative that was enacted in
2010 was the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act. Part of this act was
focused on those pursuing higher education by expanding federal Pell Grants to
a maximum of $5,500. This would also end the practice of federally subsidized
private loans. This was an initiative to help those trying to get higher
education and receive more money in order to help cover rising tuition rates.
Another initiative to help the
economy and prevent the recession from progressing was the Car Allowance Rebate
System or “cash for clunkers”: a program established by the U.S. federal scrap
program with funding of $3,000,000,000 intended to provide economic incentives
to U.S. resident to purchase new cars and to recycle the materials from old
cars in order to help the car manufacturing industry (U.S. Department of
Transportation). According to the Department of Transportation, the program was
initially to only have $1,000,000,000, but that money was quickly used by July
30, 2009. Since the program was suppose to end in November later of that year,
Congress approved $2,000,000,000 to help the program finish out. At the end of the program Toyota accounted for 19.4% of sales,
followed by General Motors with 17.6%, Ford with 14.4%, Honda with 13.0%, and Nissan
with 8.7%
This
was all occurring around the time that General Motors filed for Chapter 11
bankruptcy. Many people in the nation, especially the Midwest, was concerned
with the closure of General Motors because it was a large employer for the
Midwest and several manufacturing companies relied on the business of General
Motors. As a response, President Obama approved a bailout of the company to
prevent hundreds of thousands of people from losing there jobs with GM with
countless others in surrounding manufacturing companies that work in factories
that process materials such as steel and rubber.
The
largest legislation the President Obama pushed for was the Affordable Care Act.
The document itself is 906 pages long establishing perhaps one of the largest
healthcare reforms in the history of the United States of America. The
Affordable Care act is an executive order signed into law in 2010 lasting
through Supreme Court Decisions determining its legality and by this year
health insurance companies were expected to offer coverage to everyone,
regardless of preexisting conditions and sell policies through newly created
state marketplaces aimed to making insurance more affordable (Thomas).
The
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services website lists a lot of pertinent
information as follows:
Annual Limits: Starting in
2014, the law bans annual dollar limits. This means plans cannot have annual
dollar limits on coverage of essential benefits, such as hospital, physician
and pharmacy benefits
Coverage for Young Adults: Under
the law, if a plan includes children, a parent can cover children on their
health insurance plan until the child turns 26 years old
Grandfathered Plans:
Grandfathered health plans protect the ability of individuals and businesses to
keep their current plan, while providing important consumer protections that
give Americans control over their own health care
Market Rating Reforms: These requirements standardize
how health insurance issuers can price products, bringing a new level of
transparency and fairness to premium pricing
Minimum Essential Coverage: is the level of coverage
an individual needs to have to meet the individual responsibility requirement
under the Affordable Care Act. This includes job-based coverage, individual
market policies, Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, TRICARE, and certain other coverage.
Health plans not statutorily specified and not designated through regulation as
MEC may apply to HHS to be recognized as MEC.
The list proceeds
from their and covers and extensive amount of information on the functionality
of the Affordable Care Act as it is a 906 page document and has a lot of
important things for people to be aware of since this effects everyone.
I
analyzed a survey conducted by the Princeton Survey Research Associates and was
conducted December 12-15, 2013. The sample size consisted of 1,000 people with
the sample being adults of the United States of America. The interview method
was by telephone (both landline and cell). When asked, “The federal minimum
wage is now $7.25. Do you think the federal minimum wage should be raised,
lowered, or should it remain the same?” it was a split result between “raised”
and “lowered”. When asked if it should be raised it was a 100% response stating
they would all like to see minimum wage raised to $9.00.
When
asked, “Since 2009 the number of Americans on food stamps has grown from 32
million to 47 million. Which of the following do you think is the MOST
important reason for this increase?” 360 people stated that more people were
getting food stamps because of loose eligibility requirements and fraud; 241
people responded stating that more people needed food stamps because of the
recession and slow recovery; and 47 stated both equally.
The
question is why does all of this matter? The research I conducted for this
assignment was to analyze New Deal policy and other related initiatives to help
stimulate the economy, how effective it is, and if the public approves of it.
When looking at President Roosevelt’s administration, a new initiative that set
the standards for the Democrat policy understand, changed the shape of the
country by creating one of the greatest topics of discussion of whether or not
government intervention is the solution.
Modern
Democrats would agree that government intervention is necessary and may even
want more government involvement i.e. socialized medicine. When looking at the
approval ratings for President Roosevelt, he achieved high approval ratings as
a president as well as New Deal Policies that were designed to help stimulate
the economy and eliminate poverty/unemployment.
When
analyzing President Johnson’s administration, he took a step further in the
idea of Democrats creating a larger government in order to ensure a well
functioning country. President Johnson’s administration was nicknamed “The
Great Society” because he was able to establish several new government programs
as well as expand government programs from the Roosevelt administration that
resulted in a large reduction of people in poverty and has established and
standard of how many people should be living in poverty since it has not
reached that level since his administration in 1964.
The
surveys I analyzed pertaining to President Johnson’s administration were also
high approval ratings in terms of “The Great Society” initiatives and reducing
poverty within the United States.
Analyzing
President Obama’s administration is when things start to change. President
Obama managed to enact similar initiatives that involved a larger government to
fix what economic analysts were calling a recession. Initiatives such as cash
for clunkers, the GM bailout, the bank bailout, and the Affordable Care Act
(Obamacare), where all initiatives that the President believed were the best
ways to solve the recession that the United States was in. It was also believed
that by doing all of these things, the United States would increase the
national debt as well as the debt ceiling, but prevented the potential of
another Great Depression.
The
difference between President Obama and the other Presidential administrations
was his approval ratings. Many people believed that the way he went about
things and his actions were either wrong or unnecessary. The Affordable Care
Act is still a hot topic and many Republicans still campaign that they will
have it repealed if they are elected. Even when analyzing food stamps, many
people who took the survey believed that it was unnecessary/too easy to acquire
food stamps/people were simply taking advantage of the system to get benefits.
It
is understandable why people were upset about the Affordable Care Act because
that was simply legislation that was forced through by President Obama, not to
mention the fact that it is now mandatory to have health insurance, but why
were all of the other initiatives so poorly rated by public opinion?
When
other presidents, such as President Roosevelt and President Johnson, were faced
with high levels of poverty and increased government spending and programs,
their approval ratings were good. When President Obama increased food stamps
and related programs, many people thought it was bad, unnecessary, and a waste
of taxpayer dollars even though poverty levels/unemployment had skyrocketed by
the time President Obama was put into office.
Perhaps
the general outlook of the American people has become more partisan and believes
these programs are no good and will simply hurt the country. Maybe the general
public simply believes that these programs are not needed and capitalism should
just run its course. When analyzing President Johnson’s administration there is
a direct correlation between the increase of government relief programs and the
reduction of poverty within the United States of America.
It
is the great debate that continues to this day and is one of the reasons why
the parties are established the way they are. I chose this topic in particular
because it is essential to understand the dynamic of the United States of
America and its government. If the general American people are not informed or
simply misinformed and how these government initiatives have done tremendous
strides for the country during some of the most desperate times it is important
that they are informed and understand that these have been the most effective
ways on record that The United States of America was able to combat poverty,
recession, and the Great Depression.
Bibliography
Public Papers of FDR. Rosenman.p 2:49-54. Acquired
April 22, 2014
Ibid., 2:296. William Woodin. James A. Farley. Franklin D
Roosevelt. New York Times. 11 December 1933.
The New Deal and the Problem of Monopoly. Ellis Hawley.
Princeton, New Jersey 1968 p 19-146. Acquired April 20, 2014
The Triumph & Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson. Hawley. Texas
A&M University Press. Acquired April 20, 2014
Car Allowance Rebate System: What is the Car Allowance
Rebate System? U.S. Department of Transportation
Affordable Care Act Clears a Final Hurdle: [Business/Financial Desk]
The Triumph & Tragedy of Lyndon Johnson. Joseph
A. Califano. Texas A&M University Press 1991. Acquired April 19, 2014.
