Discuss the response of the United States government to the Great depression.?

[Leyla P]

To what extent can this response be considered a turning point in the role of the federal government in managing the economy?

Does anyone have any ideas of maybe how i should go about answering this question?

In my intro im gonna introduce the great depression, what was happening then, and talk a little about the economic standing of the country. But i dont really know how roosevelts actions effected the role of the federal government in managing the economy. Did the federal government get bigger, more efficient? Did the federal government have more say in the economy of the country (laissez faire)?

 

[brucec83]

The main purpose of government has always been to protect its citizens. At one time, this meant just providing an Army. After the Great Depression, it included protection against bad banking and securities practices, shortages and gluts of money, and poverty in old age.

We have had depressions before, but this was the grandaddy of all economic disasters, and it was caused by businessmen's greed and the government's laissez faire attitude towards regulating business. Before the Great depression, the view prevailed that "the government that governs best, governs least." That "the business of America is business". After it struck, people demanded that their government do something about it and prevent it from ever happening again. As a result, government grew bigger and did many more things than ever before.

Roosevelt's New Deal included forming the Social Security Administration, the National Recovery Administration, The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation The Securities and Exchange Commission got more power and the Federal Reserve added responsibility for fiscal and monetary policy to simply printing the proper amount of money.

Many conservatives want less regulation of business, but the Great Depression shows just how wrong they can be.