Political Quotes

“My answer to that is it depends on your definition of success. I happen to think that the fiscal stabilizers in the post- World War II period have been a success. And I think it is a consequence of a combination of fiscal and monetary policy. It is the same process used by other countries. It is not as though I am putting for an analysis something that is only used by the United States and not used by others. Countries have sought to avoid what they experienced, which of course culminated in the Great Depression in 1930's when we had an absolute collapse with respect to our gross national product. We had a 15-percent drop in gross national product. Franklin Roosevelt came in and he said we are going to balance the budget. Hoover was running deficits in the budget. Everyone said you have to balance the budget. Hoover tried to balance the budget unsuccessfully. The effort to balance the budget, I am asserting here, in those economic circumstances, worsened the economy. Roosevelt came in and said we are going to balance the budget. Then they got in there and they came to realize if they tried to balance the budget in those economic times they were only going to worsen the state of the economy. More people would be out of work. There would be less purchasing power and the spiral would continue to go downward. That is when they moved in a different direction. I am not arguing you should have unrestrained or unlimited deficits. Obviously you need to be very prudent.”