Failed Policies – Then and Now

by Emily Dietrich People no longer use the term “Hoover Flags” to describe turned-out empty pockets or “Hooverville” to characterize a tent city. Yet, many Illinoisans may be surprised to learn that the failed policies that discredited President Herbert Hoover are still being implemented today. Jonathan Bean, who is a Professor of History at Southern...

by Emily Dietrich

People no longer use the term “Hoover Flags” to describe turned-out empty pockets or “Hooverville” to characterize a tent city. Yet, many Illinoisans may be surprised to learn that the failed policies that discredited President Herbert Hoover are still being implemented today.

Jonathan Bean, who is a Professor of History at Southern Illinois University and serves on the Illinois Policy Institute academic board, reveals that history has a way of repeating itself. His recent commentary in The Washington Times likens President Barack Obama to Hoover.

After taking office in 2009, Obama drastically increased government spending, bailed out “too big to fail” companies like General Motors, and wasted countless dollars on so-called shovel ready jobs. Many reported that these actions were unprecedented. Not so fast.

Bean demonstrates that Hoover instituted similar failed policies in the 1930s:

“For his part, Hoover promised a ‘triumph over poverty.’ When the economy tanked, he increased government spending, cut taxes, bailed out businesses ‘too big to fail,’ and proposed a massive infrastructure bank to employ men in shovel-ready jobs. Contemporaries called this stimulus package ‘priming the pump.’

“Yet unemployment soared, and the GOP lost control of the House of Representatives in 1930. Hoover blamed his woes on the international economic situation and his political opponents. Sound familiar?”

Although the White House has compared Obama to President Ronald Reagan, Bean believes that Obama is more similar to Hoover. Citing their perceived intellectual superiority, vanity, and big government spending, Bean says, “It’s starting to look like ‘déjà vu all over again’.”

Then and now, after increased government spending and expansion, the economies sputtered and unemployment soared.

These failed government-centric policies have profoundly affected Illinois. The state suffers from record levels of spending, taxing, and mandatory obligations. The economy shed 24,900 jobs in the month of July alone.

After Hoover went on a spending spree, the country slipped into a Great Recession that took over a decade and a world war to escape.

For the sake of Illinois and the nation, the similarity better stop here.