Carl Golden | September 20, 2017
Dragging the Christie anchor behind her, Guadagno can’t get any traction when it comes to warning voters what her rival’s programs could cost
Carl Golden
The year was 1938. Franklin D. Roosevelt occupied the White House, struggling to lift the nation from the depths of its most punishing Great Depression.
History has it that Harry Hopkins, head of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and Roosevelt’s closest and most trusted advisor, recommended unprecedented massive government intervention as the solution.
“We shall tax and tax, spend and spend, elect and elect,” Hopkins is supposed to have said to the president, a blunt assessment for breaking the bleak economic circumstances of the time by extracting money from the wealthy, spending vast sums of it on public works job creation, and basking in subsequent electoral victories delivered by a grateful nation.
Hopkins later disputed reports of his rather cynical political calculation, but the legend lives on. (Note: Hopkins’ remark was first reported by the New York Times. His denials may be the first recorded allegation of “fake news” directed at the Times.)
