Huey Long's criticism of the New Deal highlights the overwhelming complexity and bureaucratic nature of the National Industrial Recovery Act (NRA) regulations. He emphasizes the absurdity of ordinary businesses, such as a peanut stand or a shoe-shine stand, being burdened by an extensive and convoluted rule book, with over 900 codes that are "as thick as an unabridged dictionary." Long illustrates the detrimental impact of these regulations by mentioning a pants presser who was jailed for undercharging, demonstrating how the stringent enforcement of these rules can ruin small businesses and lead to unjust punishments. His commentary underscores the idea that the New Deal's approach was excessively complicated and detrimental to entrepreneurs rather than supportive of them.
And they proceeded with the NRA. Everything from a peanut stand to a power house had to have a separate book of rules and laws to regulate what they did. If a peanut stand started to parch a sack of goobers for sale, they had to be careful to go through the rule book. One slip and he went to jail. A little fellow who pressed a pair of pants went to jail because he charged 5 cents under the price set in the rule book. So they wrote their NRA rule book, codes, laws, etc.
They got up over 900 of them. One would be as thick as an unabridged dictionary and as confusing as a study of the stars. It would take 40 lawyers to tell a shoe-shine stand how to operate and be certain he didn't go to jail.
In 3-5 sentences, analyze Huey Long's criticism of the New Deal. Cite specific details in the except to support your analysis.
(4 points)
1 answer
1 answer