The Second New Deal - Essay Example

THE SECOND NEW DEAL The Second New Deal During the 1930’s, America was facing a number of reforms in its social, economic and political life. A number of its leaders such as Huey Long, Father Charles Coughlin, Alfred Landon as well as the President Franklin Roosevelt came up with various policies that were supposed to look out and carter for the needs of the citizens. Some of these policies fell under the New Deal which was challenged for not being effective. As a result of this, Franklin Roosevelt came up with a number of new policies that came to be known as the Second New Deal and various issues as pertains to the new deal will be the focus of discussion in this paper.

The Second New Deal had a number of goals, first, there was determination to fight poverty, this was one issue that the New Deal did not address thus Roosevelt felt he was supposed to look at. Secondly, it was going to counter the mass unemployment in the country with employment for most idlers. Another goal that the second deal had was to provide social safety in the whole region as well as deal with the crisis of bank failures (Kennedy, 1999). To achieve these goals, the Second New Deal was going to propose several pieces of legislation so that what they were planning to do was going to be accepted on a national scale, thus embraced by everyone one.

With regard to this, several acts were passed in the assembly. One of them was the Social Security Act, this act provided benefits in terms of money for the elderly and the unemployed, and this was to be under the unemployed insurance and old age pensions. It was also to cater for the blind and the physically challenged persons (Kennedy, 1999). This was to be funded by a double tax on every working Americans paycheck. This was one group of people that had been abandoned in the earlier deal and Roosevelt argued that they ought to be catered for in the New Deal (Kennedy, 1999).

The Wagner Act, that was named after Robert Wagner, the senator who introduced the bill that later came to be known as the National Labor Relations Act was also formed. This act forced employers to allow their employees to form unions so that they could get the power to collectively bargain for their rights. According to Kennedy, 1999, the Works Progress Administration Act was passed on the April of 1935. This Act helped unemployed people by offering them the opportunity to work in public works projects all over the country.

These included projects such as the construction of schools, playgrounds and other public facilities as well as theatrical productions and writing projects to those who could manage such. The Second New Deal was effective in doing all of this because; as a result of the Works Progress Administration Act nearly 10 million Americans were hired to construct public amenities in under a decade with the Congress using almost $10 billion in this project. On the other hand, the Social Security Act was also gathering a lot of success; it gave income to the most destitute in the society such as the blind (Kennedy, 1999).

In addition to this, it completely changed the views that most Americans had regarding work and retirement. Earlier, retirement was always viewed as an unbearable period which was hard to get through but it was now seen as something that every retiree could enjoy. This was because the paycheck taxes were being termed as personal retirement savings but they were redistributed as soon as they were collected thus helping everyone in the society as well as those who were being taxed when they reached retirement age (Kennedy, 1999).

Another area where the Second New Deal proved to be very effective was in the Labor Force. As per the Wagner Act, there was more effective collective bargaining and striking just within a year of its enactment. For example, there was a case where the General Motors Automobile factory used the Wagner Act to initiate strikes where their sentiments were effectively considered. This was a point whereby the striking workers could sit at their work stations and refuse to leave thus preventing the company from hiring new people to fill in for those who were striking.

This was opposed to earlier rules where any striking worker would be unjustly written off. Kennedy, 1999, says that the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act helped in the agricultural sector since farmers were paid so that they could plant soil enriching crops as opposed to earlier where there was a lot of land degradation as a result of over cultivation and poor farming methods. Regarding all the successes mentioned above, it is quite evident that the Second New Deal reforms were quite effective therefore successful.

The Second New Deal survived constitutional challenge when as opposed to the First New Deal which was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court because the First New Deal was looking out for short term solutions in solving issues in the country. This was not the case with the Second New Deal where most of the strategies set in place were going to provide long term solutions to the problems of the citizens (Kennedy, 1999). For example, in places where the New Deal simply provided welfare, the Second New Deal provided work something that is far much better than welfare whereby the government could run out of the resources to provide welfare and be forced to either reduce the amount provided or totally cut back the whole program.

Therefore, it is the permanency of the solutions provided by the Second New Deal that gave it success over the First New Deal. In conclusion, reforms are always hard to implement and even harder to be accepted by the subjects. However, it is the magnitude to which the reforms can help all the parties involved that determines whether they will be effective or not. The Second New Deal helped the citizens a great deal and also made it easier for the government to solve most social and economic issues in the country and that is why it thrived.

Reference Kennedy, D. M. (1999), Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945. New York: Oxford University Press.