Arguing about spending

There's an argument over whether governmental spending is the way to get out of the economic recession we're in. Democrats say yes, Republicans say tax cuts are better.

President Roosevelt's New Deal spending is credited by many as effective in starting the recovery from the Great Depression of the 1930's, while others say it was the massive spending for World War II that ended the depression.

Some economists have pointed out that, although the economy didn't really turn around until the 1940's and the war, the initial New Deal spending was making a big difference until FDR reacted to criticism and pulled back; then the recovery slowed again and didn't come about until the huge outlays for defense spending.

A letter in today's New York Times got me thinking about this. What seems to be true in both arguments is that spending that creates jobs is the answer, whether it's for roads and bridges or for bombers and tanks.

So the Republicans' "not until WWII" argument against Obama's current spending proposals doesn't make sense. There were no tax cuts in the 1940's to spur the economy; it was the spending -- and lots of it.

Atlanta's Don George, the NYT's letter writer, agrees: "I say, then, let's spend as if we were in World War II and our very survival depended on it. President Obama's budget appears to do exactly that."

Ralph