General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: America's massive trade deficit: Why BIG tariffs won't hurt the United States [View all]pampango
(24,692 posts)believe that trade was good for the country and the world. He certainly did not agree with the republicans of his era on that.
Is being a "CLASSICAL Liberal" now a bad thing here? The revisionist view is now that FDR was not a progressive Democratic leader whose policies produced a strong middle class until Reagan dismantled his policies in the 1980's? Now he was just a member of the Elites who rammed free trade down the world's throats out of fear of a communist revolution?
The odd thing is that the progressive countries in the world today still embrace FDR's policies of high/progressive taxes, strong safety nets, strong unions, tighter corporate regulation and, yes, lots of international trade. And those policies have produced, as FDR knew they would, strong middle classes and equitable distributions of income.