The New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression

My CasePricesMy opponent says that increasing prices increased profits for the farmers. However, this is completely wrong as in the theory of supply and demand. Higher prices means less people can buy goods and thus farmers earn less profit. Demand was high for food, but because of the lack of supply, prices were higher and people could not afford what they needed. In addition, the AAA created more unemployment among sharecroppers and monopolies among big farmers: "The AAA did not help the sharecroppers though. These people, and there were three million sharecroppers, did not own their land. Many sharecroppers were African American and they lived lives of poverty. In the immediate aftermath of the AAA, they got employment from farmers to destroy the farmers' crops. Once this had been done, they had nothing to do and many left the land and moved to the ghettos in the cities where they faced similar poverty." [1] Luckily, the AAA was ruled unconstitutional in 1936. This is because of the monoply effects it created. Nevertheless, the act hurt many people who wanted food and left many unemployed. [2,3]However, the AAA was not the only act that drove up prices. The National Industrial Recovery Act was FDR's centerpiece to fighting the Great Depression. This drove up prices and wages (wages will be discussed later). Just like with the AAA, this meant less people could buy goods with higher prices. The video explains this well. However, did FDR succeed in bring the prices as high as he wanted in the first place? The answer is no. In fact, they practically brought back deflation later in the Depression. The country went back into deflation and remained under it again until World War 2, so it did not meet FDR's expectations according to the graph I will cite. [10'High WagesWith higher wages, FDR hoped workers would buy good and bring the economy back. This is wrong because of the higher prices. Workers could not afford some goods like they were able to back in the 1920s. The whole reason an industry hires workers is to create profit, but FDR does not seem to understand this. Because industries did not have the profit they needed, they had less flexibility to hire more workers. In fact, the article my opponent cited even states this:"You might hear that "it wasn’t the New Deal that cured the Great Depression." But that’s because the New Deal was always meant to save the American economy, to buy time while the international crisis came to a head."In order to save the American economy, the Great Depression had to be finished, which the New Deal did not do. What saved the American economy was indeed World War 2, but this is not because of high wages or prices at home. This is because of demand from across the oceans. Because of outside buyers, businesses made more products for other nations and hired more workers. This was not because of the New Deal. The government's actions of giving people more money to spend did not do that. [2,4]Unemployment"Congress created the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), perhaps the most popular of all the New Deal Programs. The CCC provided unskilled manual labor jobs for about 3 million unmarried young men, many of whom might otherwise have drifted into criminal activity. Organized into outdoor government camps, the CCC worked in conservation and development of land resources owned by federal, state, and local governments. They planted 3 billion trees to replace the forests that had been devastated by unregulated industrialization. They fought fires, worked in flood control, drained swamplands, and built public access and service roads in rural areas. Some 800 parks were created, and most state parks were updated. CCC workers wore uniforms, lived in tents, and received $30 per month in wages--$25 of which was sent home to their parents. The pay wasn't much, but the money and the work had a notable effect on morale."My opponent discusses the CCC. FDR made several programs during the Great Depression to lower unemployment, something that he did care about. If he did not care about unemployment, then he would have not made programs like the CCC. Even with the CCC and other similar programs that brought people work, unemployment still stood over 20% as my previous source shows. [3,5,6]Devaluation of the DollarThe devaluation of the dollar did not work. There was deflation by the end of the 1930s just like it was when the gold was first taken off. My opponent is wrong he says that foreign demand was increased. In fact, the article my opponent cited is not even on the Great Depression, but on China. Why did trade rebound? Two reasons. The first is obviously World War 2 and did need more military goods and the second is the end of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff. Mr. Cain and Mr. Lowrie write that:"This was a massive tax to 60 percent on 3,200 imported products. The economy, along with the stock market, started to go into free fall." [7]In 1934, the Reciprocal Tariff Act was passed that gave FDR the ability to create more liberalization in trade. The lack of tariffs brought back trade in the country. The gold standard did not have as much as a goal. Its important to remember that FDR put the nation back on the gold standard for a reason. However, the higher price hurt consumption. [7,8]Higher TaxesWe can clearly see that FDR raised taxes during the Depression from Hoover's 63% increase to over 79% in taxes in 1935 based on the graph I will provide. This was a big mistake and rather foolish on his part. The first thing to note is the Laffer curve. If you raise taxes you risk losing revenue and getting less production. Raising taxes would be a mistake and at the same time only so few people actually had over $5 million in the 1930s. As a result, there was far less revenue than what was needed. World War 2 did not start until 1939, but the United States was not in it until later. [3,7,9]ConclusionI have proven that FDR's New Deal policies prolonged the Great Depression rather than end the it. His policies of higher wages, higher prices, and devaluation caused a negative effect rather than a positive one. Unemployment was high during the entire 1930s and many people were left unable to buy goods due to higher prices. Higher wages caused further negative effects and restricted more production and surpluses to lower prices. My opponent has not made a case. Sources1. "Farmers and the New Deal." Historylearningsite.co.uk. History Learning Site, n.d. Web.2. Higgs, Robert. "How FDR Made the Depression Worse." Mises.org. Ludwig Von Mises Institute, Feb. 1995. Web.3. Edwards, Chris. "The Government and the Great Depression." Cato.org. Cato Institute, 1 Sept. 2005. Web.4. Cole, Harold L., and Lee E. Ohanian. "New Deal Policies and the Persistence of the Great Depression: A General Equilibrium Analysis." Econ.Yale.Edu. Yale Department of Economics, May 2001. Web.5. http://en.wikipedia.org...;6. http://www.debate.org...7. Cain, Herman, and Rich Lowrie. 9-9-9: An Army of Davids. Herndon, VA: Velocity ; Mascot, 2012. Print8. http://en.wikipedia.org...;9. http://www.debate.org...10. http://www.debate.org...http://www.youtube.com...