FDR as triangulating centrist (The New Republic, November 1933)

Mr. Roosevelt on Stilts
Jonathan Mitchell

November 29, 1933 | 12:00 am

We have never before had anything like the Roosevelt administration. Except perhaps for early assemblies of the Founding Fathers, there has never been a government in this country which has acted so rapidly, and imprinted its influence on so many varied areas of our national life. It is not enough to say that Mr. Roosevelt has been faced with a great emergency. So was Mr. Hoover, and he was as immobile as a lump of mud. Nor, unless you are a hero worshiper, can you explain it by Mr. Roosevelt's superior personal virtue.

What is it that makes the Roosevelt administration tick? For anyone wishing to investigate this problem, I have a few small suggestions. The first is that the administration is essentially a coalition government. From its inception, it has been made up of clearly recognizable Right and Left wings. On the Right, you find Mr. Lewis W. Douglas and what is now called the "Treasury crowd"; on the Left stand Mr. Tugwell, Mr. Berle, Dr. Wolman and a long list of liberal and radical lawyers, college professors and economists.

You find this principle of coalition running straight down through the administration. In the N.R.A. you find Mr. Roosevelt's deputy. General Johnson, perched between an Industrial Advisory Board representing employers, and a Labor Advisory Board, representing the workers. In the words of General Johnson: "Our whole organization is designed to maintain balance. An industrialist and a labor leader sit in on everything we do." Over in the Agricultural Adjustment Administration, you discover authority almost evenly balanced between a group unabashedly representing Big Business andthe group headed by Mr. Tugwell. Perhaps the most startling application of the coalition principle was Mr. Roosevelt's selection, last summer, of professor George F. Warren, exponent of the commodity dollar, and Professor O. M. W. Sprague, strait-laced economic classicist, as the two chief experts of the administration's unofficial committee on monetary policy. Here the coalition has signally failed to coalesce and—as is apparent in Mr. Roosevelt's recent pronouncements—the administration still lacks a permanent, agreed-upon monetary program.

I suggest that this coalition principle is the thing which gives the Roosevelt administration its great mobility. In a sense, a coalition government can be looked upon as simply a parliamentary form of dictatorship. If you are Adolf Hitler, you beat up your opponents with rubber clubs, fling them into concentration camps, or kill them. In a democratic country you bring the opposition inside your administration. In either case, you succeed in rendering your opponents temporarily voiceless, and ensure yourself such freedom of action as a partisan government can never have.

http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/78943/mr-roosevelt-stilts

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Did Roosevelt promise to support expansionary fiscal policy to combat the depression? Well, yes, but only after initially promising to cut the deficit. Westen strongly implies that Roosevelt persuaded Americans to understand the efficacy of government spending in order to combat mass unemployment. In fact, he utterly failed to convince Americans to support fiscal stimulus:

Gallup Poll (December, 1935)
Do you think it necessary at this time to balance the budget and start reducing the national debt?
70% Yes
30 No

Gallup Poll (May, 1936)
Are the acts of the present Administration helping or hindering recovery?
55% Helping
45 Hindering

Gallup Poll (AIPO) (November, 1936)
DO YOU THINK IT NECESSARY FOR THE NEW ADMINISTRATION TO BALANCE THE BUDGET?
65% YES
28 NO
7 NO ANSWER

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FDR’s initial response to the Great Depression provides an interesting case in point, for Roosevelt came into office as something of a fiscal conservative. In keeping with the fiscal orthodoxy of the time, he called for a balanced budget during his campaign, was reluctant to deficit spend once in office, and even pressed for the successful passage of the 1933 Economy Act as one of his first major pieces of legislation-an act which cut federal spending by nearly 250 million dollars during the first months of his administration.

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Further evidence of FDR’s inherent fiscal conservatism can be seen in his decision to cut federal spending at the start of his second term-a move which resulted in the so called “Roosevelt recession” of 1937-38 and which led to the first increase in the unemployment rate since his assumption of office in 1933. Stunned by this unfortunate turn of events, FDR began to heed the advice of those who advocated the economic policies of John Maynard Keynes. In 1938, therefore, the President would submit a budget that called for an increase in federal spending but without any concomitant increase in federal taxes. The resulting deficit, the President argued, was necessary to enhance “the purchasing power of the nation” so as to expand the economy-and the tax revenues that would flow from it-and reduce unemployment.

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"The country needs and, unless I mistake its temper, the country demands bold, persistent experimentation. It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something." - FDR

At least not for the most part. When this piece was written, it was FDR's first year in office. FDR's positions changed as he got better knowledge. Remember when presidents did that?

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FDR wasn't triangulating, for the most part. He was trying different ideas to find which ones work.

FDR started out embracing principles and programs both left and right. The programs on the left worked and were expanded, those on the right failed and were discarded. Except for the dreadful deficit-hawkery of 1936-1937 (thank God no politicians would be stupid enough to do that again!), FDR pretty well abandoned rightist principles and practices within a couple of years of taking office.

From The New York Times, February 2, 1935:



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