Right-wing obstruction could have been fought: An ineffective and gutless presidency’s legacy

[HooptieWagon]

249. Partial list.

Federal Emergency Relief Administration
Reconstruction Finance Corporation
Federal Farm Board, which FDR incorporated as the Agriculture Adjustment Act.
Revenue Act, which raised individual top tax rates from 25-63%, doubled Corporate Rates, and closed loopholes.
Glass-Steagall Act.
Smoot-Hawley Tarriff Bill, which didn't work but FDR hung on to it for a bit.
Troop withdrawals from Nicaragua and Haiti were the genesis of FDR's Good Neighbor Policy.
Public works spending, including the Federal Buildings Program, Division of Public Construction, and Hoover Dam.

Lets have a quote from Rexford Tugwell, an economist from Colombia University and one of FDR's chief economic advisors: "Practically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs Hoover started".

My own thoughts... Probably inaccurrate to say Hoover favored austerity. His own beliefs were Leissez Faire, but as the depressioned deepened he set his own beliefs aside and stepped up spending and increased taxes. He was unpopular at the time... perhaps partly due to the depression occuring during his watch (although only 8 months in, so he was hardly to blame), partly due to lack of immediate improvement (it took FDR another couple years for improvement, which he put back into recession by budget trimming too early), and last but probably not least, Hoover rather strictly enforced Prohibition, which might have been where much of his unpopularity stemmed from. Note, Truman brought Hoover into his administration as an advisor, and to head the Hoover Commission.

In short, Hoover doesn't belong among the nation's best presidents, but he doesn't belong among the worst where he's sometimes included.