How Did The New Deal Prolonged The Great Depression

Summarized position 1 Professor Burton Folsom's position indicates that the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression. He argues that Roosevelt’s New Deal policies interfered with and prolonged economic depression because they heavily taxed private businesses, farmers, and veterans. For example, Biles supported Congress’s passage of the Smoot-Hawley tariff Act in 1930, which raised taxes on imported goods. However, Folsom points out that the act was disastrous to the American Economy. Foreign countries retaliated by refusing to buy American goods, so therefore American business suffered even more. Folsom also mentions how the anti-business policies of the New Deal, continued to raise taxes on these institutions, which ultimately complicated and
He argues that the New Deal policies stabilized American politics so that they could return to normal after WWII. Biles recognizes the benefits of the reform programs that were designed and implemented to change the nation’s economic practices. He also noted recovery programs that were intended to create jobs for unemployed workers to boost the economy, and relief programs that were designed to help people find jobs and get them back to work.

This argument is stronger and why Historian Roger Biles presents a stronger argument than Professor Burton Folsom on whether the New Deal prolonged the Great Depression. He included several programs from the New Deal that positively affected the economy and cited hard evidence of economic prosperity after implementing programs from the New Deal into American Society. Biles’s included the passage of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 and the creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to demonstrate positive reforms towards a more stable national government. The SEC was established in 1934 to protect the crumbling economy by preventing