'Growns ups in the room' in DC are determined to elevate Herbert Hoover's economic policy

prescriptions: Ever more harsh austerity cuts to 'balance a budget' with a deaf ear and a blind eye toward the present and no doubt increasing number of unemployed.

What I find particularly galling is that because hindsight is 20/20 - we KNOW how that turned out for Hoover and all the poor people who suffered in the Great Depression until another President came along who was willing to think OUTSIDE the box who looked at the poor, the unemployed, and listened to their pleas and did something to stop the madness: who realized that government exists to 'promote the general welfare' - read the Preamble sometime - it is the VERY ESSENCE of the PURPOSE of government.

But because we have SPIN-MEISTERs in BOTH Parties whose job it is to RE-ELECT incompetents who clearly flunked history ~ and I don't care whether they went to the Ivy League or some religious alternative reality educational institution~ if you are an American citizen and you think that Herbert Hoover had it right all along - you flunked history....

OR......

You know what Hoover did, but you have deliberately decided to replicate it just so you get re-elected - that makes you craven and it's clear you think the American people are stupid - that YOU think THEY didn't pass or remember US History.

My prediction is~ any incumbent politician in the White House who wants to duplicate Hoover's tenure is going to duplicate Hoover's electoral 'success'...the American people are getting really adept at what I term 'grassroots term limits' - You don't listen to the CHANGE they want - you are OUT.

Hoovering seems to be the appropriate term for what the rich corporatists are trying to do to the rest of us.

And they won't be satisfied with anything less.

the ruling class wins.

Given a choice between a 'real Republican' and 'Republican -lite' they go with the real thing...every time.

And people are getting adept at realizing they have to 'give someone the hook' to get the CHANGE they want it might take a few election cycles..but they will get there.

I think it was at the essence of Coakley's defeat to Brown - she started tanking when the news came out that the public option was dead AND that they ~ Obama and certain Dems( blue Dogs)~ were considering taxing middle class health care benefits. Labor said REALLY? And you expect me to phone bank? And Martha? You have nothing to say about this? Oh you want the cash that Rahm is making you fly to DC for? He's holding it 'hostage' and you're looking at the $ and looking at the outrage of the unions and you took the dough and shut your mouth - and Brown made a commercial about your cash trip to DC......

You can't win without unions if you are a Dem ...you just cannot spin history( because that presupposes that you think people are stupid) and scream that people aren't clapping loudly enough when there is NOTHING to clap for.

That's the election plan?

Spinning history and screaming that people aren't clapping loudly enough?

Hoover expanded government regulation of corporations (Roosevelt in 1932 ran against this "government interference" that disturbed the "actions of the free market"), proposed a Department of Education (Democrats in the Senate killed that idea), raised taxes, increased the powers of the IRS, proposed an old-age pension system, and created the antitrust division within DoJ.

What he proposed was a too little too late and the American people collectively said: After experiencing THIS you expect us to trust you?

Umm, NO.

And FDR got in and he had REAL progressives in his Brain Trust: Francis Perkins, Harry Hopkins who had been thinking about real programs that would help real people and there was a willingness to try anything to alleviate suffering.......the rest as they say

is HISTORY

It actually fits the adage that who President appoints is just as important, if not more important than the President themselves: Hoover had Mellon and FDR had Perkins and Hopkins and Obama has Geithner and (had)Summers and Rahm and now Daley

Signals A LOT

I'd say it signals EVERTHING

Presidents largely do what they have to. Maybe I'm too fatalistic.

and had a view of government that it should not be 'activist' on behalf of ordinary people.

The bubble burst( sound familiar?) and he was trapped by his ideology

Hoover was a Progressive and ran and governed as one. He was against the laissez faire philosophy and significantly increased government regulation of the economy.

else I've tried has done squat~Hooverism~ so he, at the end proposed too little too late.

There is a MAJOR part of me that recognizes that Hoover didn't know any better and was hamstrung by what he saw as the role of gov't.

We, all generations, post Hoover should know better.

And FYI, Hoover had a ton of compassion - he helped to rebuild war torn WWI Europe - but he was a victim of his time and ideology.