Herbert Hoover and Obama?

Ever since I heard Senator McCain mention President Hoover and Senator Obama in the same sentence I was pretty annoyed. At the time I couldn't quite remember the exact policies of Hoover, but I had a feeling that the McCain campaign was banking on that. They figured most Americans wouldn't know whether or not Hoovers policies were anything like Obama's, and most probably wouldn't take the time to look in to it.

It seems like a scare tactic, one to make voters weary of Obama, and I personally cannot stand those kind of politics. Politicians should speak truth. Everyone in this election is just out for their own gain. Obama, McCain, Palin, Biden, their campaign managers, even the interns working for them at the very bottom. They all care about themselves more than the general public. I have a hard time thinking any of them are actually in "public service". It makes me not want to vote for anyone, but that won't change the fact that one of them is going to be in charge of this country. I don't want my president to cheat and lie his way in to office, even if he does only care about his own gain.

With that said, here are some things I read about Hoover in a history book. One that had to go through reviews, and approvals, and editing before it was published. In other words it is legitimate. The book is called Uncommon Americans, edited by Timothy Welch.

Hoover chose to rely on volunteerism and on the private sector to be responsible for fixing economic stresses. He felt like it was the responsibility of the new social elite (university educated businessmen, engineers, etc...) to stabilize the economy. In other words, less government. In November 1929 he held a series of conferences in Washington for nearly 400 of the nations leading business execs. The plan was for these leading businesses to create voluntary committees whose goals were made to stabilize employment, and maintain wages across the nation. By 1930 this was central to Hoovers economic plan. However with time these volunteer committees began to fail, and by 1931 the entire idea was a failure. Private business men were looking out for their own good (similar to the way they do now) rather than doing their part in fixing the economy.

That may seem like a tangent, but I feel like it is relevant to the point.

Hoover initially cut taxes in response to the depression.

Prior to his presidency Hoover was known for being an exceptional crisis management politician, notably for his role in feeding post-war hunger stricken Europe. I bring that up only to say that, he cared about the depression, he wanted to fix it, he tried to come up with solutions the same way he had in the past. However, the depression was too big to fix.

I wanted to provide a few more examples, but this is getting too long and I don't want to lose my point.

Obama wants more government, Hoovers solution was less. They don't have the same economic policies whatsoever. I think the McCain campaign insinuating that Obama will have the same effects on the country that Hoover did is unfair.

Julie, I would agree with you that socialism isn't the best economic policy, but I don't think sharing the wealth from the top of a society to help the bottom is a bad thing at all, nor is it socialism.

The bottom line is that we are in a consumer driven economy, if 1-2% of a population control an overwhelming amount of the wealth in a consumer driven economy and the other 98% of people don't have the money to buy anything (cars, homes, etc...) than the consumer economy is in trouble. The economy can't be kept alive by 2% of the population buying stuff. To me it makes sense to take care of the middle and lower classes. If you don't take care of the people who hold the economy up the people at the top will fall just as hard.

I think I'm finished with this post, I've been doing it at work throughout the day when I've had time. I hope that my point is coming across and wasn't lost in the process of writing a blog post over the course of a few hours.