Bruce Bartlett held senior policy roles in the Reagan and George
H. W. Bush administrations and served on the staffs of
Representatives Jack Kemp and Ron Paul. He is the author of “The
Benefit and the Burden: Tax Reform – Why We Need It and What It
Will Take.” By the summer of 1932, the Great Depression was
three years old with no end in sight. The Hoover administration,
like Republicans today, was adamant that economic stimulus was
wrongheaded, that the big problem was business confidence, which
would be restored by keeping the budget under control, and that
under no circumstances should the Federal Reserve adopt policies
that would ignite inflation. Perspectives from expert
contributors. Perspectives from expert contributors. As a
consequence, producers could not make a profit, which led them
to lay off workers. As workers lost income, they reduced their
purchases, which intensified the downward pressure on prices. By
early 1932, a growing number of prominent economists were openly
advocating “reflation” –