John R. Ridpath: FDR did not ‘reset’ economy

In response to the Dec. 22 letter “Do the math”: The letter writer stated that he has “run the numbers” but unfortunately has not checked his history. He said we are back at 1930, and we need another leader such as FDR to “give us the economic reset ... we need.”

The type of “reset” the Roosevelt administration gave us is the last thing we need. The U.S. economy, which was in a much worse “quagmire” in the 1930s than recently, was not reset until World War II. In fact, Henry Morgenthau Jr., who was the secretary of the Treasury from 1934 to 1945 under Roosevelt and Truman, stated, “After eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started ... and an enormous debt to boot.”

Checking those numbers, unemployment in the late 1930s through 1940 ran from 15 to 20 percent, and the economy was, for most of that time, in negative inflation, meaning that it was still contracting. In short, the FDR administration did little to “reset” the economy in any meaningful way.

This story was originally published December 29, 2015 at 5:53 PM with the headline "John R. Ridpath: FDR did not ‘reset’ economy."