F.D.R’s Example Offers Lessons for Obama

In 1933, as today, a new president stepped into the White House, vowing change and decisive action at a time when a banking crisis posed a grave threat to the nation’s economy." New Yorkers waited for food in 1934. In the ’30s, total government spending as a share of the economy was less than 20 percent and the unemployment rate averaged more than 17 percent. The economic morass that confronted Franklin D. Roosevelt 76 years ago was undeniably deeper and more ominous than the trouble President Obama is facing. Yet, according to economists and historians, there are also some telling similarities and cautionary lessons to be drawn from the experience of the Roosevelt years in the 1930s."