The popular adage that "the Democrats love employees and hate employers" was probably coined during the era of the New Deal and this column will help to explain why. During his presidency FDR launched numerous tax laws and assorted other pieces of legislation that served only to stymy competition, raise prices and slow all economic growth. The editors of Collier's Magazine published this spirited and rational defense of corporate America in 1938:
"Let the [government] bureaucrats stop badgering business and [the] relieved businessmen will, on their part, be only too willing to co-operate. American business, whatever its limitations, has produced a better living for more people than any other system of production... The American big-business system has fed people better and more generously. It has provided more convenient and more wholesome shelter. It has distributed vastly more of the mechanical aids to civilized living."
Click here to read another editorial about FDR's poor handling of the business climate.
Click here to read about FDR's tax plan from 1935.
FDR's critics were not impressed with the first year of "The New Deal"...
Click here to read about FDR and the press.
