new deal essay outline

FDR and the government moderately solve the problems of the Great Depression through relief for the needy, economic recovery, and financial reform.

Paragraph 1: Financial reform
Emergency Banking Act- Closed all banks in the country; banks were not allowed to re-open until the Securities Exchange Commission deemed them stable.
-National Industrial Recovery Act- set up the following two organizations.
· Public Works Administration- used government $ to build things like schools, dams, roads, bridges, and airports. This created millions of jobs and boosted America's infrastructure.
· National Recovery Administration- Improved working conditions all around. Child labor was banned, and wages and production were regulated fairly. By giving workers money, the government hoped to jumpstart the economy. Not every organization joined, but those who did got to use a blue eagle as a symbol of their NRA membership.

Paragraph 2: relief for the needy
-Federal Emergency Relief Administration- Spent $500 million on on necessary items for the poor: soup kitchens, nurseries, blankets, and employment plans.
-Wagner Act- Forced all businesses to allow their workers to form unions, and forced them to negotiate pay rates with these unions. Workers could no longer be fired to union involvement.
-Social Security Act- Set up a series of taxes and laws that provided pensions for the elderly and for the sick/disabled; also set up a scheme for unemployment insurance. Workers contributed a small amount out of every paycheck; this money was put into a fund that they could draw on in the case of unemployment.
-Work's Progress Administration- The WPA combined all organizations whose goal it was to create jobs. It not only created jobs in building, but also worked to give office workers and even actors, painters, and photographers jobs.
-Resettlement Administration- Gave help to tenant farmers who had not been helped by the AAA. It moved over 500,000 families to better lands. In 1937 it was replaced by the
Paragraph 3: economic recovery
Farm Security Administration, which gave loans to small farmers to help them by land, and created camps so that migrant workers could have better living conditions.
-Agricultural Adjustment Act- Paid farmers to stop production. Also ordered thousands of hogs to be slaughtered; this caused much controversy. The AAA did rise crop prices, though - it was ultimately successful.
-Civilian Conservatin Corps- Young, unemployed men could join the CCC for six months, helping out with environmental projects, and being paid for it. They could sign up again when the six months was over if they still could not like other work.
-Tennessee Value Authority-Cut across the power of local Tennessee Valley governments. Main purpose was to build dams across the Tennessee River; the dams not only provided thousands of jobs for the very poor Valley citizens, they also made electricity widely available and made it possible to irrigate the dried out lands.

Paragraph 4: successes and failures
Successes of the New Deal:

· Restored confidence and stopped investors pulling money out of the banks.
· Banking measures saved 20% of homeowners and farmers from repossesion.
· Farmers were 50% better off under AAA by 1936.
· TVA brought electrical power to underdeveloped areas.
· Public Works Administration created 600,000 jobs and built landmarks like San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge and the Supreme Court Building.
· Had Congress authorize $500 million for Public Works Programs (Hoover Dam is an example of this federal stimulus)
Not all was successful
-The AAA was controversial because it authorized the slaughtering of thousands of hogs and the planting of crops with no end product; this was seen as wasteful
-The WPA gave jobs (and money) to people whose services were not absolutely necessary; puppet makers, actors, and artists were commissioned for little good reason
-Through the Emergency Banking Act, those who had their money invested in banks that were not deemed fit to reopen lost their money; they were not repaid.
-The RFC was a good concept, but it was too little too late.
-Social Security gained much criticism; it was easy to abused

Paragraph 5: counter argument
it's Not Doing Enough!
-Although the New Deal was certainly helpful, many Americans (especially African-Americans, immigrants, and those in the farming regions) were still horrifically poor.
-Main proponent: Huey Long
-Long was a Louisiana Governor, and then Senator, who won elections by underhanded methods but used his power to help the poor, taxing big businesses to build hospitals and schools, and standing up to the KKK by fairly employing blacks.
-Felt strongly that the New Deal simply was not doing enough, and proposed various other plans which involved the sharing of wealth
-Until his assasination in 1935, Long was considered one of the country's two most dangerous men by FDR
-Father Coughlin (a Catholic priest) set up the National Union for Social Justice, which criticized the New Deal