In this economic crisis, no historical example has been more frequently cited than the Great Depression.With no battleground states left to fight over, pundits have instead concentrated their energy on recasting the 1930s into a fable with a moral supporting their ideology.Valid theories must pass two basic tests. They must be logically consistent and empirically verifiable.They have to make sense, and they have to match the facts.Unfortunately, the recent retellings of the Great Depression fail to clear these hurdles.Several right-wing commentators claim the New Deal actually made the Depression deeper and longer. Prosperity, in their eyes, did not come until World War II.Allegedly, the war improved the state of the economy after production was nationalized to keep up with the war effort. Yet it is Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s early nationalization policies Republicans criticize.WWII was powered by economic interventions of greater scope and scale.To criticize the New Deal for nationalization and then praise the war effort for greater nationalization is to argue that your friend made an unhealthy choice when he started drinking coffee but made a healthy choice when he started mainlining heroin.The government interventions of the war may have supported a cause Republicans now idolize, but this doesn’t change their unquestionably negative affect on the economy. Americans not fighting for their lives on a foreign shore endured rationing, forced monopolization and a lower standard of living.World War II was, at best, an unfortunate necessity, and its benefits were not economic.Where the Republicans’ story fails to be logically consistent, the Democrats fail to match the facts.Most left-leaning pundits claim the New Deal eased the Great Depression.It’s hard to find evidence this was the case.In 1929, the unemployment rate was only 3.2 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.By 1931, the Great Depression had pushed this number to 15.9 percent. Despite the multitude of government programs that FDR enacted under the depressing umbrella of the New Deal, unemployment in 1940 was 14.6 percent, and the Depression was still ongoing.By 1940, Gross National Product per capita — a measure of wealth created per citizen — was only $916, just barely above its 1929 level.Not only did the New Deal fail to lift America out of the Depression, there is evidence it actively hindered recovery.All else held equal, an increase in a government’s expenditures beyond its revenue results in decreased private investment. Instead of spending money on capital investments that will increase consumption, investors spend their money on government bonds to finance the deficit.From 1930 to 1940, net private investments was negative $3.1 billion after subtracting depreciation. By 1940, 70 percent of all metal-working equipment was more than a decade old, according to a paper by Robert Higgs entitled “Regime Uncertainty.”The result was a decrease in productivity — a normal source of improvements in standard of living.Any tax — whether it be on income, sales or capital gains — is a disincentive on economic activity. The tax cuts that followed WWII — unlike the piles of money labeled “tax cuts” toward the end of George W. Bush’s presidency — further encouraged productive actions, and the result was sustained growth.Unfortunately, this lesson doesn’t benefit either the Republicans or the Democrats, both of whom favor increases in government spending.Daniel Morgan is a 21-year-old economics major from Baton Rouge.——Contact Daniel Morgan at [email protected]