Who Made the New Deal?
By LANCE SELFA Comparisons between Barack Obama’s assumption of power and Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s in 1933 have been many and varied. Following Obama’s first press conference as president-elect, New York Times business reporter Joe Nocera wrote a November 7 column titled “75 Years Later, a Nation Hopes for Another FDR.” Others, like the writers and editors for the liberal Nation, openly endorse a “new New Deal” from the Obama administration to help working people. None of this is surprising. Roosevelt’s New Deal is remembered today for signature programs that seem very relevant in light of the economic disaster spreading from Wall Street through the rest of the economy. The New Deal is synonymous with Social Security; with the “alphabet soup” agencies like the WPA (Works Progress Administration, which created jobs for the unemployed constructing public buildings); and with the government’s recognition of the right of workers to join unions. But the New Deal didn’t come about because
