FDR: A New Perspective

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) has had a wonderful reputation in the United States as one of the great Presidents.  He was the only one in history to serve more than two terms.  Indeed, FDR was a gifted leader, speaker, and a most charismatic and charming man.  He was an able war leader and deserves some praise and accolades.  I have a different view of FDR that I want to present here.  Below I will list some of the many flaws and damaging things that he did as president that cannot be ignored or swept away under the rug.

FDR was a liberal's liberal.  He was the first liberal president of the United States who, in many ways, transformed America - for the worse. An example:

• Economically, he was a follower of John Maynard Keynes, the British economist who was an advocate of big government spending.  FDR spent like a drunken sailor, through his failed New Deal.  He truly believed that big government spending was the fix for economic problems.  We now know that this was wrong.  Let's take the 1930s depression as an example.  Did all the government programs of FDR fix the economy?  In 1932, when he took office, the unemployment rate was 23.5%.  In 1939, after eight years of massive government spending the unemployment rate was still at 17%.  Do you call this an economic success?  The economy was revived after WWII when taxes were slashed by a Republican Congress, which among other things, reduced the highest income tax rate from the astronomical amount of 94% for earners of $200,000 and above, and other incentives for economic growth were passed by Congress, reversing FDR's failed New Deal policies.  Click here for a short essay on this.  Economically, FDR was a failure.

• How about Social Security?  Was that not a stroke of genius?  Well, no, it was not.  Let me ask you a question.  Can you live on what you make on Social Security?  Probably, 95% cannot and would be in deep poverty if they only had Social Security.  Let me give you a personal example.  I prepared for retirement by making private investments in an IRA and a 457 Plan from work.  Together, I invested less than $30,000.  These two investments now give me double the monthly income I get from Social Security.  Oh, you say, most people don't know how to invest.  It's not rocket science; all you need it the willingness to put money in investments that will produce on a regular basis throughout your working life.  I had zero training; I learned it myself.  Very easy.  If I had invested all I paid into Social Security in my 45+ years of working I'd have a multi-million dollar investment now.  Social Security has very limited benefits.

Now for the second part:  FDR's damaging legacy:

•   Government spending.  Because of the huge government spending legacy that he started we now have out of control government spending.  As of this writing the national debt is over 18 Trillion dollars.  In 1945, at the end of World War II, and after spending $296 Billion on the war, our national debt was $259 Billion.  Today, it's 18 Trillion dollars.  Click here for the history of our national debt.

• The internment of Japanese American and to a lesser extent Italian and German Americans.  What FDR did to loyal, good, if not the best, American citizens of Japanese ancestry is beyond forgiveness.  If you were a Japanese-American in 1942, you're life would be changed forever.  You would end up in a concentration camp, accused of crimes you never committed.  You never got your day in court, or your due process under the Constitution, you were arrested by FDR's government and imprisoned like a common criminal.  Many people lost all their property and never got it back.  Italian and German legal immigrants not born in America were labeled enemies of the state just for their ethnicity.  Many Italian and German Americans were rounded up and imprisoned for no reason at all.  Many lost their business and livelihood.  The Italian-American Mayor of San Francisco, Angelo Rossi was publicly humiliated by innuendo as a Mussolini follower, with zero evidence.  All untrue.  So was FDR a great man?  Depends on whom you ask.  To some he was, to others, and I'm one of these, I believe FDR did more harm than good.  Granted he was a gifted leader, but even tyrants such as Mussolini and Hitler were gifted leaders.  What was the fruit of their labor?  You will know them by their fruits.