David Woolner

To balance our budget in 1933 or 1934 or 1935 would have been a crime against the American people. To do so we should either have had to make a capital levy that would have been confiscatory, or we should have had to set our face against human suffering with...

Cross-posted from Next New Deal.

In recommending this program I am thinking not only of the immediate economic needs of the people of the Nation, but also of their personal liberties -- the most precious possession of all Americans. I am thinking of our democracy. I am...

The news that President Obama has decided to establish a special new task force to investigate abusive and fraudulent lending practices during the housing boom, coupled with yesterday's announcement of a $26 billion settlement aimed at providing relief to struggling home owners, will certainly be greeted as welcome...

Government has a final responsibility for the well-being of its citizenship. If private cooperative endeavor fails to provide work for willing hands and relief for the unfortunate, those suffering hardship from no fault of their own have a right to call upon the Government for aid; and a...

Mr. Vice President, and Mr. Speaker, and Members of the Senate and House of Representatives:

Yesterday, December 7, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire...

[H]ere is the challenge to our democracy: In this nation I see tens of millions of its citizens -- a substantial part of its whole population -- who at this very moment are denied the greater part of what the very lowest standards of today call the necessities...

"Our greatest primary task is to put people to work. This is no unsolvable problem if we face it wisely and courageously. It can be accomplished in part by direct recruiting by the Government itself, treating the task as we would treat the emergency of a war, but at the...

When FDR ignored the Keynesian tenet that cutting spending in a downturn spells disaster, he paid dearly. Obama is set to relearn this lesson the hard way.

"The economic experiments of President Roosevelt may prove, I think, to be of extraordinary importance in economic history, because for the first time...

In a recent editorial in the New York Times, former Labor Secretary, Robert Reich writes that this Labor Day promises to be one of the worst in decades. Organized labor, he notes, is down to a mere seven percent of the private work force; unemployment remains high; and...

From an economic standpoint, will 2010 be the year of the woman? As part of the Roosevelt Institute's ongoing 'Feminomics' series, running on the New Deal 2.0 blog, I was asked to reflect on women's changing roles in the economy. Here's my take on how the New Deal advanced the...

As part of the Roosevelt Institute's 10-part series on the Jobs Crisis, running on the New Deal 2.0 blog from Nov. 12-25, I was asked to reflect on what can be done to get Americans working again. Here's my take.

The recent news that the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP)...

Roosevelt historian David Woolner shines a light on today's issues with lessons from the past.

After trillions of dollars in losses on Wall Street, massive bailouts, the collapse of the American auto industry, rising unemployment and a mortgage foreclosure crisis not seen since the Great Depression, it hardly seems surprising...