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Political Insider

If Southern praise of FDR is wrong, who wants to be right?

3:12 pm August 9, 2012, by jgalloway

Martha Zoller and Doug Collins, the Republican runoff candidates in the 9th District congressional race, continue to gnaw at each other today over the Internet.

On Wednesday, Collins had attacked what he called “Martha’s shifting stance” on abortion, declaring that her statements as a radio talk show host called into question “her entire claim of being a conservative.”

Zoller’s camp pushed back by releasing a re-certification of sorts from Georgia Right to Life, the most aggressive anti-abortion group in the state:

“Georgia Right to Life would like to reaffirm that Martha Zoller is endorsed and certified as Pro-Life by Georgia Right to Life. This is not an easy endorsement to receive and should never be taken lightly. We thoroughly vet our candidates and can assure all voters that Martha Zoller will work in Congress to protect the unborn if she is elected to serve Georgia’s 9th Congressional District in the August 21 run-off.”

Collins, on the other hand, cut loose with a list of wrong things that Zoller has allegedly said or written about U.S. presidents. The final example was this:

Martha wrote that Franklin D. Roosevelt, the man who created the earliest beginnings of our federal social programs and added billions to our national debt, was “fiscally conservative.” (Indivisible: United Values for a Divided America, 2005, p. 175)

Said Collins:

”FDR generated many of the tax-and-spend policies that have led to our catastrophic national debt – far from ‘fiscally conservative.’”

U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, R-Athens, has said something like this before.

Even so, the South has become a remarkably different place when casinos can win a majority vote, while FDR is considered unworthy of a kind word. The man and his policies rescued many grandparents and great-grandparents from the brink of starvation in this region, and still rendered the country fiscally fit for a world war.

If thinking well of Franklin Roosevelt is wrong, I’m not sure I want to be right.

- By Jim Galloway, Political Insider

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38 comments Add your comment

Big Hat

August 9th, 2012
3:26 pm

Zoller, Collins and Broun: all so stupid it hurts.

ByteMe

August 9th, 2012
3:33 pm

Zoller, Collins and Broun: all so stupid it hurts.

Just their constituents. But they hardly notice.

FDR brought electrification to rural Georgia when business refused because there was no profit in it. And Reagan generated many of the debt-and-spend policies we’re struggling against now. But say anything bad about him and you lose a Republican primary. The stupid just burns.

DJ Sniper

August 9th, 2012
3:34 pm

Par for the course for Georgia politics. Yet people will still vote for these idiots.

Jon Lester

August 9th, 2012
3:34 pm

At least you’ll have a Democrat in the GA-9 race. We’re stuck with Paul Broun for another two years in GA-10.

cc

August 9th, 2012
3:35 pm

”FDR generated many of the tax-and-spend policies that have led to our catastrophic national debt – far from ‘fiscally conservative.’”

I agree with this statement. Although some think that FDR was a god and the salvation to the south, I do not believe this. FDR did NOT bring the U. S. out of the depression as so many liberals would have us believe. World War II brought us out of the depression, and created one hell of a debt in the process.

On one point I do agree with FDR. He loathed the very idea of government employee unions.

I guess even a blind squirrel will find an acorn occasionally.

Dirty Dawg

August 9th, 2012
3:38 pm

Welcome to the Georgia of Republican idiocy and rationalization of hate and bigotry. Hell, next thing you know Westmoreland will propose that they abandon Warm Springs as a National Park, or whatever it is. Remember it was Bush Family, Nazi-sympathizing, Republicans that tried to overthrow FDR back in the mid thirties…thank God they failed, but too bad they kept having offspring.

Marlboro Man

August 9th, 2012
3:43 pm

9th district has no choices between those two nits.

Danny O

August 9th, 2012
3:43 pm

FDR proved that infrastructure is a worthy investment of tax dollars.

Buckhead Boy

August 9th, 2012
4:00 pm

Want to know what the Great Depression would have been like without FDR? Then just give the Republicans more control of the federal government, and you’ll get to experience that for yourself.

Darwin

August 9th, 2012
4:29 pm

Jim, more haunts from District 9 (wasn’t that a movie?). Anyway, be careful what you say. Some of these bloggers really don’t take well to being called a little backward. Oh well, I guess it’s a sign of the times. All you hear from the right wing is fiscal conservative. You would think that Billy Bob down at the cafe was the new Milton Friedman. These people couldn’t tell the difference between a debit and a credit. OK – stop government spending. And then what? You think you’re going to have jobs just because the government stop sending you Medicare checks?

The New Deal had one main purpose. Prior to that, government was only about the rich and powerful. When the Great Depression hit, he created government jobs and used spending not to solve the economic crises, but to keep it from getting worse. He gave people hope that government was there for them.

We should see more government spending right now, not less. ECO 101 – government spending drives up interest rates when the pool of available money is siphoned off by the government. Have you seen interest rates lately?

Attack Dog

August 9th, 2012
4:44 pm

At least with Liberals tax and spend on America. Dixiecrat tax, spned an borrow, with absolutely nothing to show for it.

Bernie

August 9th, 2012
4:46 pm

I could imagine what FDR would think and say of today’s politics of the Republican and Tea party members and supporters.

“We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization. ” Franklin D. Roosevelt

We ALL should heed the wisdom of one of our greatest Leaders……..

Shar

August 9th, 2012
5:00 pm

Don’t the voters of the 9th, to say nothing of the rest of us, merit a debate on the real issues facing the district, state and country rather than a political smear effort revolving around a president who has been dead for nearly 70 years? Don’t either of these candidates have anything better to offer their constituents?

Mary Elizabeth

August 9th, 2012
5:01 pm

Bernie, 4:46 pm

“We must remember that any oppression, any injustice, any hatred, is a wedge designed to attack our civilization. ” Franklin D. Roosevelt

We ALL should heed the wisdom of one of our greatest Leaders……..”
==============================================================

I agree with your words, above, Bernie. The affection between FDR and Georgians in the 1930s and 1940s was authentic, and it was based on their mutual understanding the plight of the working class, which Eleanor Roosevelt, also, understood.

Today, America is in danger of becoming an oligarchy. The public must be helped to see through the present, and long-standing, ultraconservative propaganda that will end, if believed, in benefitting the powerful few, at the expense of the masses. This was not the design for America, as created by her Founding Fathers.

Auntie Christ

August 9th, 2012
5:04 pm

Resident economics historian cc (stands for can’t compute) at 335 states that FDR did not bring the US out of the Great Depression. Consider GNP growth in the 1930’s:

Year %Change in GNP President
1930 – 9.4% Hoover
1931 – 8.5 Hoover
1932 -13.4 Hoover
1933 – 2.1 Hoover/Roosevelt
1934 + 7.7 Roosevelt
1935 + 8.1 Roosevelt
1936 +14.1 Roosevelt
1937 + 5.0 Roosevelt
1938 – 4.5 Roosevelt
1939 + 7.9 Roosevelt
Roosevelt’s average growth of 5.2 percent during the Great Depression is significantly higher than Reagan’s 3.7 percent growth during the Seven Fat Years!
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/61More.htm
______________________________________________________________

Resident pox news regurgiatater/Aynn Rand Cliff notes maven then states: “World War II brought us out of the depression, and created one hell of a debt in the process.”

The significance of this statement, I have yet to determine, is he saying we should not have run up the debt, or does he just like to state the obvious, that fighting wars cost money? Please enlighten us oh wise one. And the next time you and your brethren complain about Obama’s massive accumulation of debt, I will point out your statement here, to remind you that your ‘gods’ bush/cheney/rumsfeld/wolfowiscz started a war without reason or cause and ” created one hell of a debt in the process.”

And finally I’ll remind cc of this:

Had it not been for FDR and the New Deal, half of the south would have never driven on a paved road or seen an electric light bulb before their 20th birthday, much less received an education or even likely to have been born. FDR’s TVA brought electricity, and programs like the WPA et al that kept your parents and grandparents from starving to death, allowing them to sire a bunch of ignoramuses to complain about government programs for the disadvantaged. The so-called red states, especially the southern ones couldn’t then and can’t now survive without the taxes of New Yorkers, Chicagoans, and other industrial cities and states supplementing their state governments . After the previous generation built schools for your education, hospitals for your health, an interstate highway system and other infrastructure that allows free and unobstructed commerce, you suddenly “don’t need no stinkin government,” and don’t won’t to pay your fair share to ensure the blessings go to the next generation. You wouldn’t even be able to post your idiotic rants about government had it not been for the government program that developed the ARPANET, which eventually became that series of tubes you call the internet. You are the real parasites on this country.

Allison

August 9th, 2012
5:06 pm

So, FDR’s social programs ran up billions of dollars in debt. I reckon all the wars we’ve fought since then were free of charge, or maybe someone else paid for them.

Rockerbabe

August 9th, 2012
5:13 pm

There’s not fixing stupid.

Hillbilly D

August 9th, 2012
5:15 pm

I’m amazed at how interested folks get in elections in districts that they can’t vote in.

And by the way, one side of my family were big admirers of FDR but on the other side, my Grandpa hated him because he had been growing 5 bales of cotton a year but when FDR started with the allotments, his allotment was one bale. Since Georgia was a solidly Democratic state (and my Grandpa was no Republican), the allotments could be used to buy votes in other states because they knew they had Georgia sewed up..

Puerile Pedant

August 9th, 2012
5:25 pm

Georgia’s Nat Deal, the Tea Party and the GOP legislature believe that unless infrastructure pays for itself its not worth having.

Well I guess its not worth having.

FDR was a commie sympathizer

findog

August 9th, 2012
5:28 pm

The courthouse square in Gainesville is named for FDR
Do these people really even live in the district?

zeke

August 9th, 2012
5:34 pm

mary e. and auntie, you need to speak slower so td will understand

findog

August 9th, 2012
5:36 pm

cc,
The national debt didn’t hit a trillion until Carter, quadrupled under Reagan [maybe just tripled]
What was the great debt FDR left to us?

Alan

August 9th, 2012
6:03 pm

FDR did a lot to alleviate suffering during the depression, especially in the South. My grandparents revered him. Some of his other policies were not so beneficial in the long run. Sadly, this is not a discussion that can take place in thirty second sound bites or on twitter, so we’re unlikely to ever have it. It’s all part of dumbing down America.

GaBlue

August 9th, 2012
6:12 pm

If you boast the endorsement of Dan Becker and his thieving, woman-hating, arsonist band of THUGS, then you really must not have anything meaningful to say in your campaign. How sad.

Gen. Andy Jackson

August 9th, 2012
6:35 pm

FDR saved the capitalists from themselves. Yet they were (and remain) too blinded by greed to grasp or admit it.

Mary Elizabeth

August 9th, 2012
6:45 pm

We must remember that the U. S. had a surplus at the end of Clinton’s presidency – so FDR’s human rights’ policies did not run up the deficit from which we are all now suffering. That huge deficit happened in the 2000s. Ask yourself why? For an insightful, in depth answer, read the link, below:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/opinion/22krugman.html?scp=1&sq=Paul%20Krugman,%20The%20Bankruptcy%20Boys,%202/22/10&st=Search

Lars

August 9th, 2012
6:56 pm

When I read the thoughtful and logical posts on this blog (discounting a few–we all know who they are) it gives me hope for this state. But when I open up the ajc tomorrow all hope will be dashed again.

Ol' Timer

August 9th, 2012
7:08 pm

When ignorance gets out of the box it’s hard to get it back in.

Diane

August 9th, 2012
7:29 pm

Ok lets leave FDR out of this he may have created or started a lot of the programs. They have helped us for years. I am the wrong one to talk to about FDR, my grandparents, my mother and father and I love him. He was a president for the people. For the everyday, rural person and for all. He brought electricity to the rural areas.. That alone is worthy of all praise
LOL…

Lynn43

August 9th, 2012
7:30 pm

If fighting over who is the most conservative is the only thing on which your campaign is based, you don’t offer very much to the people you hope to represent. Three “C” words I hate: Conservative, choice, and charter.

hiram

August 9th, 2012
7:30 pm

This stuff isn’t rocket science. A handful of super wealthy comic book character types have decided they want it all for themselves, literally, and they are willing to do anything to get it.

They enlisted the most vile personalities that money can buy to disperse hate speech to the most unsophisticated and vulnerable sector of society.

Their tried and proven methodology is to bundle what they want with what the “unwashed masses” want, nevermind that the “unwashed masses” are on the losing end of the deal, because they aren’t smart enough to realize it.

For example: Easy access to guns and ammo for all, and you pay all of the taxes, and we pay none. The “unwashed masses” jump up and down and wave their pom poms and say yes, yes, guns and ammo for all.

Ignorance is bliss…

Hillbilly D

August 9th, 2012
7:30 pm

The surplus of Clinton’s time was a surplus for a fiscal year, not a total surplus. Only one time has the national debt ever been paid off and that was under Andrew Jackson in January of 1835.

hiram

August 9th, 2012
7:34 pm

FDR was from old money – not noveau riche trailer trash, like our last and current governor…

Mary Elizabeth

August 9th, 2012
8:49 pm

Hillbilly D, 7:30 pm

“The surplus of Clinton’s time was a surplus for a fiscal year, not a total surplus.”
————————————————————–

Nevertheless, Clinton’s administration left the U. S. in much better financial shape than the financial disaster of the 2000s. Of course, some of the reasons for the (almost) financial collapse of 2008 was beyond presidential control, but some of the huge deficit accrued in the 2000s was a direct result of presidential policies, such as calculated tax cuts and unfunded wars. Please read the link I provided at 6:45 pm for additional insight as to why the U. S. deficit rose to such heights during the 2000s.

wayne

August 9th, 2012
9:05 pm

Just listen to the Tom T. Hall and Earl Scruggs version of “Song of the South” and you wonder why anyone from ’round here would say bad things about FDR but then there are a lot of folks here that are not from ’round here.

Bernie

August 9th, 2012
10:43 pm

A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, radio address, Oct. 26, 1939

Attack Dog

August 10th, 2012
4:16 am

It never happened: The Bush Administration, Denmnis Hastert as Speaker, Bill Frist as Majority Leader, John Boehner as a trustworthy-productive speaker, and Mitch McConnell working to get things done.

Jerome Horwitz

August 10th, 2012
7:46 am

Ignorance has no bounds. Just read about conditions in the US during the early 30’s – people scrounging garbage dumps while Hoover kept talking about private charity. FDR was our greatest president. When FDR’s body was transported thru GA folks lined the tracks to show respect. Watch the films from his funeral parade – people lined 10 deep and men crying. Think we’ll see that for any current politician (I wouldn’t call them leaders).

Collins, Zoeller, adn Broun are all jackasses. Please read some non-biased books on the Depression and Roosevelt.