http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj16n2-2.html
Were it not for the Great Depression, government growth would have been slower in the 1930s than it was, because there would have been no call to respond to a national economic crisis. But government was expanding its programs, its powers, and its budget during the 1920s in the relatively passive presidential administration of Calvin Coolidge, as a part of the trend of government growth that had begun with the Progressive era around the turn of the century. If the trends of the 1920s had continued, federal government growth would have been substantial with or without the Great Depression and with or without the New Deal. For Coolidge, being pro-business did not mean being anti-government (or anti-labor, or anti-agriculture), and Coolidge supported the expansion of government in almost every area, although not to the degree desired by some of his critics.
The point of this paper is to try to shed some light on the remarkable phenomenon of government growth in the 20th century that is illustrated in Figure 1. By looking at the decade before the New Deal, this paper shows that it was not the New Deal or the nation's response to the Great Depression that triggered the growth of the federal government. The seeds were sown in the Progressive era prior to World War I, and the 1920s served to reinforce those principles of government established during the Progressive era by continuing to expand the government's reach. The 1920s did not represent a plateau in government activity that was reversed by the New Deal; rather, the foundations for the New Deal were established by the increasing scope of federal government activity during the 1920s.
Were it not for the Great Depression, government growth would have been slower in the 1930s than it was, because there would have been no call to respond to a national economic crisis. But government was expanding its programs, its powers, and its budget during the 1920s in the relatively passive presidential administration of Calvin Coolidge, as a part of the trend of government growth that had begun with the Progressive era around the turn of the century. If the trends of the 1920s had continued, federal government growth would have been substantial with or without the Great Depression and with or without the New Deal. For Coolidge, being pro-business did not mean being anti-government (or anti-labor, or anti-agriculture), and Coolidge supported the expansion of government in almost every area, although not to the degree desired by some of his critics.
The point of this paper is to try to shed some light on the remarkable phenomenon of government growth in the 20th century that is illustrated in Figure 1. By looking at the decade before the New Deal, this paper shows that it was not the New Deal or the nation's response to the Great Depression that triggered the growth of the federal government. The seeds were sown in the Progressive era prior to World War I, and the 1920s served to reinforce those principles of government established during the Progressive era by continuing to expand the government's reach. The 1920s did not represent a plateau in government activity that was reversed by the New Deal; rather, the foundations for the New Deal were established by the increasing scope of federal government activity during the 1920s.
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