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Stimulus and the Depression: The Untold Story

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Professors Cole and Ohanian of the University of Pennsylvania and UCLA, provide a new interpretation of FDR's economic policies during the period 1932-1934 and the period 1937-1941, based on their research. This suggests conclusions different from that of Obama advisor, Christina Romer, and Fed chairman, Bernanke about that period. Changes in economic policies under the Roosevelt administration that helped bring wages in line with productivity, reduced strikes, and gradual elimination of the undistributed profits tax, improved incentives for business investment during 1938-1939. Cole and Ohanian, say that by 1941, before the U.S. entered the war, close to half of the increase in nonmilitary hours worked in the U.S. between 1939 and the peak of the war, had already been achieved. And this was primarily the result of the changes in FDR's policies in 1938. They say a similiar opportunity is presented by the proposals of the Bowles-Simpson commission on deficit reduction, by lowering the corporate income tax through simplification of the tax code and reducing or eliminating most tax expenditures. Improving the incentives for business to hire and invest through this and other steps is likely to do more for the economy than the steps tried so far since 2009.

The revival of Simpson-Bowles recommendations on deficit reduction in Nov.-Dec. 2012

09/26/2011

Both Republicans and Democrats now look to Simpson-Bowles as the basis of building an agreement that generates revenue by reducing loopholes, deductions and tax expenditures. Christina Romer, former chairwoman of Obama's Council of Economic Advisors's puts forward a strategy based on Simpson-Bowles in an op-ed in the NYT, Nov. 11, 2012. The "fiscal cliff" of automatic tax increases and spending cuts goes into effect on Jan. 1, in the absence of an agreement. The Romney plan and the proposal by Martin Feldstein on limiting tax deductions and loopholes for high income earners are a way to distribute the tax burden equitably.

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