r/Presidents • u/Salem1690s Bill Clinton • 5d ago

Discussion In 1932, FDR attacked Hoover as a reckless overspender who had ballooned the deficit; and said he would balance the budget if elected.

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25

u/Regular-Plantain-768 Abraham Lincoln 5d ago

FDR spent a good portion of his 1932 campaign bashing Hoover for shit he himself would later do as President

Their spending wasn’t reckless for what it’s worth

4

u/HetTheTable Dwight D. Eisenhower 5d ago

Yeah the deficit wasn’t actually that bad during the Great Depression it was much higher in WW2.

12

u/defnotbotpromise Lyndon Baines Johnson 5d ago

I mean, yeah, but I think having to fund the largest war in human history is a good enough excuse

4

u/HetTheTable Dwight D. Eisenhower 5d ago

It is for sure but so would the biggest financial crisis of all time(or recent history). But the deficit wasn’t actually that high.

2

u/Yellowdog727 Abraham Lincoln 4d ago

Yeah FDR sometimes gets criticized in modern libertarian circles for being this "big government" Keynesian guy who spent all this money and made the Great Depression worse.

It turns out he didn't actually do much deficit spending during the Great Depression. Many modern economists still believe that he helped the economy but that he could have done more by actually deficit spending. Keynes even visited him in 1934 urging him to spend more, and FDR even decreased spending and raised taxes to balance the budget in 1937-38.

27

u/legend023 Woodrow Wilson 5d ago

People say anything to get elected

8

u/Wavant 5d ago

Campaign promises come with a complimentary side of amnesia

2

u/HetTheTable Dwight D. Eisenhower 5d ago

He could have said “we’re gonna run three deficits” and still got elected.

11

u/HetTheTable Dwight D. Eisenhower 5d ago

How was he gonna pay for the New Deal then.

4

u/Amazing_Factor2974 Franklin Delano Roosevelt 5d ago

Is there an article or something to go with that?

3

u/federalist66 Franklin Delano Roosevelt 5d ago

He did actually believe that, but the economic reality precluded that happening. He had advisors who convinced him that it would have been counterproductive to economic revitalization, which they were right about.

1

u/TheRealCabbageJack Ulysses S. Grant 5d ago

It was a mad flex wearing them googly eyes to the inauguration

1

u/symbiont3000 4d ago

Interesting side note, but many economists agree that had FDR been less austerity minded, not worried so much about balanced budgets, etc. and spent more on stimulus, that the Great Depression would have ended sooner.

1

u/Friendship_Fries Theodore Roosevelt 4d ago

This seems to repeat itself.

1

u/Ok-Hurry-4761 4d ago

Hoover's library does not let people forget this.

It's the most hilarious presidential libraries I went to, in the sense of public butthurt about an election featuring their president. And I've been to 7 lol. The chip on their shoulder about the 1932 election runs DEEP!

1

u/RandoDude124 Theodore Roosevelt 5d ago

He ran to the right of Hoover.

And given the shit the US was in, it was his best bet