> Actually he didn't do much deficit spending. The deficit in
> 1932 was 4.0% of GDP. It rose to 4.5% in 1933, and 5.9% in
> 1934. It was just 2.5% in 1937, and 0.1% in 1938 (which no
> doubt contributed to the "recession" of 1937-38). To put
> that in perspective, the deficit was 6.0% in 1983. It wasn't
> until WW2 that they got serious - 14.2% in 1942, and 30.3%
> in 1943.
"Fiscal policy, then, seems to have been an unsuccessful recovery device in the 'thirties--not because it did not work, but because it was not tried."
-- E. Cary Brown
The quote comes from an AER article cited by Eric Rauchway in his fine little book _The Great Depression & The New Deal_. Roosevelt ran in 1932 against federal deficits. The New Deal was pre-Keynesian. The decline in deficit spending in 1937 was a feature, not a bug.
Shane