FDR A Four Term Progressive--Part 4

The Roosevelt administration moved quickly to establish control of the government. Within days they had 15 major pieces of legislation drawn up and presented to Congress. Ultimately a tremendous amount of power was gathered by the national government while stripping rights and responsibilities from the people. In the process of initiating and passing this legislation a welfare nation was created.

In order to get the legislation ready the Executive Branch all but ignored the Legislative Branch. The National Industrial Recovery Act passed in 1933 had as its mission ending cutthroat competition. In order to do this the government was going to force industries to come up with codes that would govern all the companies in a certain industry. The leaders of said industries wrote the codes, sound familiar, and the NIRA officials then approved them. In order to get this approval the industries had to raise wages. On top of that, the NIRA encouraged industries to accept unions and in return anti-trust laws were suspended. Ultimately the NIRA was declared unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Of all the legislation passed in the early days of the New Deal, the Agricultural Act was the most odious. This legislation was designed to assist American farmers. The intent of the Act was to balance the supply and demand for farm products, an age old problem for farmers. It was also suppose to address the matter of farm income and it was so written into the Act. This was going to be accomplished by paying farmers not to grow certain crops namely corn, wheat, cotton and peanuts, produce dairy products or raise some animals like sheep and pigs. In return, the government paid the farmers for not growing or raising these items. The money for the payment came from those who took the crops and manufactured products from them. Thus the guy who ground the grain paid a tax which in turn went to a farmer who was not producing. The goal was to put the farmer in a position where his wages were keeping up with his costs. There were only two problems with this. Some farmers, those who raised steers, were left out of the program. The other was the fact that despite the fact that land was taken out of production, as it is today, farmers raised more food due to fertilization and improved technology.

In 1937 the U.S. Supreme Court declared AAA to be unconstitutional in United States v Butler. The administration had attempted to get this by on the welfare clause in that the government was "to provide for the common defense and general welfare" of the nation. Justice Roberts consulted Madison and Hamilton on the matter. He found that Madison stated that said clause was simply an introduction to the enumerated powers while Hamilton viewed it as the government having the power to so provide. Roberts found two reasons to declare it unconstitutional. First, the processing tax levied on the manufacturers was not a proper tax under the taxing power in that one group was being taxed to support another group. Next he found that crops did not fall under the welfare clause in that "they were a system of agricultural regulations projected under the guise of appropriations for the general welfare" and these thing actually came under the Tenth Amendment. Roberts went on to note that the farmer was not given a choice in the matter and had to "accept the benefits and submit to regulation." In this decision Roberts recognized the right to appropriate under the general welfare clause but the government could not put conditions on those who accepted the funds. The government could give away their money but could not tell the recipient what to do with them.

Roosevelt was furious. Not only was AAA shot down, and rightly so, but it was going to cause great consternation within the Administration. Coming up on the SCOTUS's docket was the issue of Social Security, the greatest Ponzi scheme approved by man. This in turn lead to Roosevelt's infamous Court Packing Plan

The decision was 6-3 in Butler. There were decent arguments on both sides. The Act itself was re-written and became law. As such the farmers, who to this day accept subsidies in bloated farm bills, went on to become wards of the state with many bad ones hanging on when they should have moved on to other jobs.

FDR--A Four Term Progressive Part 2

In 1920, FDR had his first run at a national office. The Democrats selected him as the running mate for Ohio Governor, James Cox. It was not a good year for the Democrats. Wilson had botched his opportunity at Versailles. Congress had shot down our joining the League of Nations and Wilson himself had declared in 1919 that within a decade the world would find itself again at war.

The Republicans ran Republican Warren Harding also from the Buckeye State. His running mate was Calvin Coolidge. They handily defeated Cox and Roosevelt. Harding ended up having one of the most scandalous administrations in the history of the nation and died three years into his term. His womanizing and the famous Teapot Dome scandal brought a huge uproar in the nation. His Secretary of Interior, Albert Fall, leased the oil at Teapot Dome, oil that was part of the naval reserve, to oil operator Harry Sinclair. Coolidge,with no blemishes from the scandal, took over as president with Harding's death.

FDR let no grass grow under his feet. Having contracted what many thought was poliomyelitis, it now appears it was more likely Gullian-Barre syndrome, FDR underwent a wide variety of therapies for his illness. He was able, even during his presidency, to keep his illness secret from the public.

His handicap did not keep him from running for the Governor's office in New York in 1928. He had stayed close to the leaders of the Democratic party despite the fact that he had been an outspoken opponent of Tammany Hall, the Democratic machine in New York City.

One of his early steps was to assist Al Smith in his victory for the Governor's office in 1922. Then at the 1924 and 1928 Democratic National Conventions, Roosevelt gave speeches nominating Smith for the presidency. This endeared him to Smith who asked FDR to run for the Governor's position he was vacating.

FDR's run for the Governor came at the ideal time. The nation was prospering and Roosevelt moved to help it along with tax relief for the farmers of New York State and cheap electricity. Then in 1929, the stock market collapsed and the country fell into the Great Depression. Roosevelt moved immediately calling for government involvement. He put into place a model of what would later become the Civilian Conservation Corps. Over 100,000 men and boys were put to work in New York planting trees, putting erosion plans into place, and building park buildings in New York's state forests. Once again big government was on the move and Roosevelt, the new Progressive governor, was going to light up the sky with government programs and government spending that would take him from the seat of power in Albany to the seat of power in Washington, DC

I Thought Corn Was For Eating?

Next to turning oil into polyester so we could make clothing from it, turning food into fuel is about the dumbest thing I have personally experienced. What is really amazing is that the boys and girls in Washington, DC finally have the handle on it and are talking about rethinking the whole ethanol thing. It seems that making corn into fuel as well as the high petroleum prices may have caused a food shortage and price spikes around the world causing a lot of little munchkins and their moms and dads to literally eat dirt pies held together with butter and flavored with salt. I can hardly wait to sit down to a meal of dirt pies. Think it's not possible here? Remember you didn't think it was possible to have oil at $120 a barrel and gasoline at $3.65 a gallon headed only one direction, UP.
Can we find the source of this problem? Is it the blood for oil crowd currently in the White House? I think not. Keep in mind that we have the ability to stand off shore and take all of the oil in the Middle East any time we want to do that.
I would put the blame on the little, mean Greens. Those charming folks like to call themselves environmentalists and believe that we should all commit suicide because that would save the earth. Don't misunderstand, I believe in the charge that we are to be good stewards of the planet. No need to toss garbage all over the place. No need to pollute the land or water. But when you want to put me back into a tepee and you want to hinder technological development, then we have a problem.
Prior to leaving as Secretary of HUD, Jack Kemp noted that all the government regulations on housing had caused a 77% rise in the price of housing. This is what centralized government, also know as BIG BROTHER, does for you. And this is what is wrong with government today. We the people have allowed the government that we are suppose to control to come into our lives under the pretext of doing something good for us only to have it all go bad. Listen to the candidates. Hillary Clinton told the folks in Indiana today to put her into office so that she can wake up and think about us. Lord please help us. Problem is all of the candidates are just like her including John McCain.
As a nation and under our government we are suppose to protect minority opinions. We do that because on any given day we can find ourselves speaking forth on a minority opinion. What we don't do is protect the minority at the expense of the majority and if we do not move quickly, well those little cardigan sweaters will simply not be enough to protect us in the winter but none of us will have a weight problem because we will all be walking. Are you up for the trek to stop these fools and liars in their tracks? You are the government now let's take our country out of the hands of the professional politicians and put it into the hands of the people who have been decreed to be the ones in charge.