Education, not so much. I really wished that Obama would have done what FDR had done to combat the Depression. Look at all the jobs and programs he created: the Tennessee Valley Authority created jobs and cheap power that are still being used today. The FDIC added staff and boosted comsumer confidence to banks to help encourage reinvesting. The Civil Works Administration worked on roads, public parks, grave yards, trails, schools... everything. Hell, the football stadium that I played at in high school was a CWA work.
I support my President. Obama's "big government" approach to politics encourages government spending. I just wish he would have gone about creating similar public work projects that FDR had.
unfortunately, Obama is acting very similar to FDR. It has become very apparent to economists that FDR's spending/taxation policies (that actually began under Hoover) lengthened and worsened the depression. While it's true FDR's public works projects created "jobs", they were temporary and to the peril of the private sector. Further, paying a public worker just means a transfer of wealth from a private person to another private person.; it doesn't actually create wealth. when you also consider there is not a single government program that is run as efficiently as any large private company (think Post Office, Medicare, Medicaid, Amtrak, etc.) you know that every dollar that goes into the govermnet a large part of that is wasted.
Unfortunately, historians and economists knowing this is worthless. If politicians and the people who vote for them are historically ignorant and continue to think government can create wealth and artificially stimulate the economy through it's actions, then history will repeat itself.
Read these:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/tbb/tbb-0508-25.pdf
The New Deal Debunked (again) - Thomas J. DiLorenzo - Mises Institute
Compare what happened in the Great Depression and massive Federal government meddling with what Warren Harding did to turn around a massive economic downturn just 10 years earlier in the early 1920s. The drop off of the economy from peak to bottom was almost as steep as that during the Great Depression. But, it only lasted 18 months because rather than take a government stimulus approach, the government got out of the way, lowered taxes, cut spending and avoided growing the national debt.
Not-So-Great Depression by Jim Powell on National Review Online
Compare what happened under Jimmy Carter with high unemployment, gas shortages, and growing debt. Compare what happened in Japan for a decade when they passed not 1, not 2, but 10 "stimulus" packages. That decade is referred to the "lost decade" because the economy remained stagnant, inflation grew and government debt grew.
That's not to say that recent republican administrations are innocent of growing government, increased spending, or increased government manipulation of the economy. It's not about republican or democrat. It is about the idea that any government needs to stop repeating the ignorant belief that excessive government spending can lead to a prosperous economy.
If you're like me, you might like a demonstration/visual picture of our current economic situation under the new administrations policies:
YouTube - The National Debt Road Trip
now, where's that State of California IOU i just received.
Thank goodness my blueberries and pomegranate juice are heavily regulated:
Debate for lawmakers: Budget or blueberries?