What was the most significant aspect of Roosevelt's Presidency and the New Deal?

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What was the most significant aspect of Roosevelt’s Presidency

 and the New Deal?

In this essay I shall first of all weigh up all the different aspect’s of Roosevelt’s Presidency and the New Deal and finally come about a conclusion as to what was the most significant aspect. However I am going to begin by looking at how his government was different to that of his predecessors, then I shall look at the immediate affects of hi government, then what other changes influenced his government and finally what long term affects his government had.  

In this section I shall look at the difference between Roosevelt’s style of governing as opposed to the Republic government that came before him. I shall first look at Roosevelt’s most radical aspect of his politics, his ideas.

From 1920 to 1932 the Republican government had many different ideas for how the country should be run compared to Roosevelt’s economic ideas. The government of 1920-1932, the Republican’s believed in leaving the country to run itself with the least amount of interference. This method of politics is called “Laissez-Faire,” this expression is French and translates roughly to “let it be”. The governments of the 1920’s were all Republican’s so they all governed the country basically the same. The Republican’s thought that big company’s and natural resources would just create wealth for the country and that the government would not have to do anything because the American public were doing it for them. An example of the government not interfering in the economy is hire purchase and corporate advertising; the government had little to say in these matters.

When Roosevelt became president a lot of what was happening had to change otherwise America could have fallen into a state of dis-repair due to the Great Depression and Wall Street Crash. So Roosevelt knew that something had to change, and that was the previous ideas of “Laissez-Faire” were clearly not working. Roosevelt changed this and began to use a policy of “Interventionism”. This meant that Roosevelt and his government would become more involved in how the economy grew and they could intervene to change the direction of the economy at any time. They wouldn’t leave it to late like their predecessors. Roosevelt was using the ideas of an English man named John Maynard Kaynes. Roosevelt could control by seeing when the economy had grown enough and when it had he could increase taxes and cut government spending to recuperate their loses, lost by building up the economy. But if the economy begins to fall he would lower taxes to boost the economy, as increasing taxes when the public are in a dire state only makes the situation worse by depriving them of what money they have.

Although a lot of the government’s ideas were new and different some were only slightly different. For Example mass production the government had no hand in this; this was down to the factories. A lot of the government’s ideas stayed pretty much the same though. Government spending also changed, it gradually rose throughout Roosevelt’s career, starting at $4.6bill in 1933 and ending in 1942 at $34bill, due to the War. So he increased government spending quite drastically in order to satisfy his interventionism beliefs, however by modern standards this is hardly anything. When Roosevelt came into power he kept taxes relatively low which is what the previous governments had done, whilst increasing Government spending in order to restore the economy back to it’s original condition.

Secondly Roosevelt’s election played a major role in the way he governed the country, they supplied him with confidence due to his landslide mandates. When an American votes he doesn’t actually vote for the President, the voter votes for the Electoral College in a first past the post system then the winner of the state takes all the Electorate College votes. Then the EC vote decides who will be President by popular vote, the popular vote is granted for the record but does not decide the final result, this job is down to the Electoral College.  

When Roosevelt came into power he seemed to have completely changed the voting patterns in the USA. During the 1920’s the democrats had won only 41% of the votes at their peak in 89, whereas when Roosevelt ran for the presidency in 1932 he won with 57% of the votes and the electoral vote had risen in 1928 from 87 to 472 in 1932.

On the other hand the change wasn’t as complete as it first appears. The percentage increase from when they lost the presidency and when they won it was only 16%. Indeed, some elements of voting didn’t change at all. For example the voters, supporters of the democratic party where predominately from the south, these sort of voters where mainly poor white farmers.

Roosevelt had a great influence on the way Americans voted in Presidential elections. However the major change that brought about Roosevelt’s election was the change in voters. Roosevelt’s New Deal appealed to wide range of voter’s and during the 1933 election he and the Democrat’s won every state apart from Maine, the devote Republic state. His New Deal was a promise of relief to a public in desperate need, an option that provided hope, unlike the previous Republican’s.      

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Equally as important was that of Roosevelt’s part in changing the role of the American President forever. Many people believe Roosevelt changed the role of the President of the U.S.A tremendously, to see whether he did or not we first have to look at the role of the President.

The President is part of the Federal Government which governs all the 50 states of America. The Federal Government is divided 3 ways; the 3 parts are Congress, President and the Supreme Court. Congress is legislative and their job is making the laws, The Presidents job is to lead the Federal ...

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