Letter: Keynesian policies still don’t work

EDITOR,
A couple years ago, I wrote to you about the peril of using Keynesian-based approach to solving the country’s economic woes. FDR’’s treasury secretary, Henry Morgenthau, lamented the fact that after nearly a decade of trying, government spending didn’t work to right the economy.
Well, guess what? It isn’t working this time either! We are now nearly $4 trillion deeper in debt, the unemployment rate is above 9 percent — actually, 15.6 percent if we used the same statistical method as FDR — and real estate has lost about 30 percent of valuation since 2006. Government expropriation of capital and resources from the private sector will only serve to perpetuate the misery for those looking for work.
To paraphrase the George Mason University economist, Dr. Walter E. Williams, you can’t expect the level of a swimming pool to rise by filling a bucket at the deep end and pouring it back in the shallow end. The evidence is clear as can be. Follow the economic principles of the Clinton administration, combined with the 1994 Congress, Reagan, Kennedy and Harding, you get sustained, robust growth and low unemployment. Warren G. Harding’s policies that ended the Depression of 1920-21 were perhaps the most astounding, where he significantly cut the government and let that capital restore the markets. The result was the Roaring Twenties.
If you want economic stagnation and high unemployment, just follow the Keynesian policies of FDR, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter and currently Obama. President Obama claims that this recession was particularly deep and will take time to fix. Perhaps there’s some truth to that — though not nearly as bad as Harding’s economy, where wholesale prices fell 36.5 percent in 1920.
One thing’s for sure: Following President Obama’s policies is guaranteed to produce a weak economy and the misery that goes with it. It has happened every time.
Steven Schall, Ben Lomond