Question

What major new reforms did the federal government adopt during the Second New Deal and how did they mark a change from the earlier policies?

Answer 1

In a landslide, Roosevelt secured his second term, but that did not mean he was resistant to critique. With conservatives increasingly worried about his extension of government spending and influence, his opponents came from both the left and the right, and liberals were frustrated that he had not done enough to support those already suffering. The Supreme Court struck down some primary aspects of the First New Deal, angering Roosevelt and spurring him to try to stack the courts in his second term, in addition to Roosevelt 's challenges. Still, with the unequivocal approval of the voting population, he began his new term, and he spent little time starting the second step of his economic agenda. While the First New Deal concentrated primarily on stemming the American people 's imminent misery, the Second New Deal set in motion laws that transformed the social safety net of America for good.

Since the formation of the Federal Reserve System in 1914, the Banking Act of 1935 has been the most far-reaching reform of banking legislation. Previously, the Federal Reserve's policy making had been dominated by regional reserve banks , particularly the New York Reserve Bank, owned by the influential Morgan and Rockefeller families. There will be a seven-member board of directors to supervise regional banks under the new structure. They will have power over criteria for reserves, discount prices, appointment of board members, and more. Not unexpectedly, this current board retained fairly low initial interest rates, helping the federal government to borrow billions of dollars of excess cash to finance massive relief and rehabilitation projects.

The federal government has assumed responsibility for the financial security and development of the country. The plurality of historians and economists judge it to have been a great achievement in retrospect. Not only did the New Deal set minimum requirements for salaries, working conditions, and general welfare, it also helped millions of Americans to keep their houses, farms, and savings in place. "This set the foundations for an agenda of increased central government control over the economy that continued through the" Fair Deal "of President Harry Truman in the 1950s and the call for a" Great Country "by President Lyndon Johnson in the 1960s. The New Deal state, which accepted its duty for the wellbeing of people and proved willing to use its power and wealth to promote the prosperity of the country, persisted well into the 1980s, and today many of its values survive.

Many would also accept that the post-war economic prosperity of the 1950s was embedded in the stabilising forces implemented in the New Deal by social security, the employment protection created by labour employment, and federal housing lending services. In fact, the climate of the American West benefited from New Deal initiatives such as the Soil Restoration Scheme.