So the Texas Board of education got it's way.

[mrstickball]

ManusJustus said:

mrstickball said:

ManusJustus said:

I like how people try to say that government spending doesn't help the economy, that the New Deal and Keynesian economics did not work. 

You ask them, "then what got us out the the Great Depression?" 

"World War II."

"Isn't war a form of government spending?"

"Uh..."

What really got us out of the great depression was a destroyed Europe begging for American exports to help them out. During the Great Depression, exports and imports dropped 66%. After WW2, they increased massively, and we had a major trade imbalance that favored us creating jobs. So WW2 was the reason for us getting out of the depression - we became a world superpower, which favored our exports for decades.

Your claim is false.  The Great Depression was over before World War II even started, with government spending and the build up of military arms leading to economic recovery in the late 1930's.

I agree with you on exports increasing the trade deficit, though it isn't related to government involvement because more payouts for imports leads to less money in the economy regardless of government policy.

...You forget about Smoot-Hawley then. Government can and does play a significant role in how the country approaches imports and exports.

Also, you do realize that World War 2 started in the late 1930's, right? We were sending aid to Britian far before we entered the war. Yes, spending money on arms did help out, but like every stupid Keynesian argument, it was only a temporary thing. The thing that helped us have a sustainable recovery was, again, the massive increase in exports after WW2, because without them, we would have crashed back to horrible levels of unemployment (remember, our GDP dropped 20% in 1945 due to the end of the war, but unemployment was flat)