I'm outraged at these propagandists usurping the old propagandists! Rabble! Rabble rabble!

I didn't learn that at college... in fact, my professor complained that FDR went half assed with his fiscal policy, and balanced the budget, which resulted in a second recession.

Second recession? that would imply that the first had come to an end. and your professor probably left out the part about the fed tightening the money supply.

Who cares? If kids get all there knowledge from a text book,then that's there problem. Just do the work from the text book and move on. They should know that's just a snapshot of history and not the complete truth.

Which, as we've already covered... is totally wrong compared to pretty most economists.  You had a poor teacher that was teaching things contrary to what most economic schools believe.

Monetarists, NeoClassical and New Keynsians all agree that FDR extended the depression.

Only NeoKeynsians disagree and they are a marginal force.

Heck, a good example can be seen by the "second recession" we appear about ready to go through.  History repeating and all that.

That was under Hoover though...

And yes, there was a second recession:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession_of_1937

But you never answered my question in that thread. Why did FDR extend the "Great Depression"? He caused a second recession, but that was because he took contractionary policies after listening to Classicalist economists.

It's simple... the "second recession" was really just an extension of the first.  It was't because of contractionary polcicies after listening to classical economists.

We're currently about to go through a second recession with no contractionary policies.

It's just the natural outcome of massive government spending to try and "make up the difference".  It's why even New Keynsians are against it.

It's a simple matter of goverment plans causing immediate crowding out.  The government can't spend forever, and whenever it's stopped, a "second" recession happens which is really just a part of the first.

All government spending does is mask the problem, by hiding it by "defeating" a recession through the numbers.

As soon as the spending stops, no matter when you stop it... (and eventually you do) things drop back down to where it was, until a normal fix can happen.

All government spending does is delay the "normal" fix and delay peoples misery.

Just to expand upon Kasz’s point ...

Stimulus spending temporary by definition, and regardless of how it is funded it will eventually come to an end and produce a long-term drag on your economy. If you’re responsible, and you save up money in good times to be spent during bad times, you will expend your reserves and be forced to have higher taxation (than would otherwise be necessary) to replenish your reserves; if you’re irresponsible, and you go into heavy deficit spending, your will eventually reach the limit that people are willing to lend you and you will be forced to have dramatically higher taxes to pay down your debt; and if you’re a fool and you print cash to pay for your spending you will eventually cause hyperinflation and the collapse of your economy. 

Regardless of the reason, or when it happens, the removal of stimulus spending will always result in a significant decline in economic activity; although some declines will be dramatically worse than others. You can call this decline a "Second Recession/Depression" or a continuation of the original downturn, but the fact is that it is the inevitable outcome of stimulus spending.

Personally, it is my belief that the longer the stimulus spending is in place the more damaging the fallout from its removal will be; and in the extreme case, when its removal has been forced upon a country, it can be devastating. The reason for this is simple, the longer a country is engaged in stimulus spending the more they will have to cut spending and raise taxes in the future, and the higher interest rates will be.

But perhaps expansionary policies can speed up the process of regaining consumer confidence and increase consumer spending, thereby allowing government to gradually cut back on its own government spending? Perhaps if you are going to go about hastening recovery, you shouldn't do it half assed and decide to suddenly, rather than gradually, cut back on it?

And while running a defeceit does create a burden on business investment due to the increasing of national debt and crowding out, I do not believe Keynesianism approves of running defeceits during economic expansions... in fact, because they would advocate contrationary policies during expansions, they would advocate high taxes, and lower government spendings.