The New Deal and Recovery, Part 24: The RFC

George Selgin(In writing this series, I allowed myself to skip over some topics. But now that I ' m turning the series into a book, to be published by the University of Chicago Press, I have to close those gaps. The most important gap by far concerns the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC). Although the RFC was originally established by Herbert Hoover, the Roosevelt administration not only allowed it to survive but turned it into the largest and most powerful of all New Deal agencies. Hence a three-part essay, of which this is the first installment.)Hoover ' s New DealThere are few more successful examples in history of the propaganda technique known as the" big lie " than the charge that Herbert Hoover was a " do nothing " president. In fact, Hoover was being perfectly truthful when, in the course of the ' 32 campaign, he said. " We might have done nothing. . . .Instead, we met the situation with. . .the most gigantic programs of economic defense and counterattack ever evolved in the history of the Republic. " So, for that matter, was his opponent, who accused the Hoover administration " of being the greatest spending administration in all our history " (Lyons 1948, p. 287). On public works alone, the Hoover administration spent more than the previousnine administrations combined, notwithstanding that their undertakings included the Panama Canal (ibid., p. 269). No previous administration,David Kennedy (1999, p. 48) observes, ever " moved so purposefully and so creative...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs