Complex sentence: Proponents of sound finance date back to Adam Smith, founder of modern economics, and it was the dominant position until the Great Depression, associated with the gold standard and expressed in the Treasury View that government fiscal policy was ineffective.
Split into simpler sentences: Proponents of sound finance date back to Adam Smith, founder of modern economics. Sound finance was the dominant position until the Great Depression, associated with the gold standard and expressed in the Treasury View that government fiscal policy was ineffective.