Welfare Politics

1) Most of the New Deal is considered the essence of political moderation because of accidents of history. In the wake of the economic catastrophe of 1929-33, the credibility of the old elite and its ideology was shattered; the recovery which began in 1933, though limited, lent credibility to the changes of the New Deal. The human catastrophe of the Second World War created conditions which made large-scale government intervention necessary. Both catastrophes combined to sweep away the skepticism about the radical measures of the New Deal. By the time Eisenhower became President, New Deal policies were part of the fabric of American life.
2) According to Krugman, those voters who were usually poor (aside from blacks) tended to support Democrats in general and a strong welfare state. These same voters were also disenfranchised due to their poverty, so it removed part of the left side of the political spectrum. After severe immigration restrictions were imposed in 1924, the fraction of the population without the right to vote steadily dropped. By the fifties, relatively poor whites were able to avail themselves of their right to vote due to better economic conditions. The result was a shift to the left in the American electorate.
3) According to Krugman, the South politically supported Democrats (besides voting against Lincoln) in the 1950s because the Democratic Party tacitly accepted Jim Crow laws. Socio-economically the South supported the Democrats because under the New Deal, the South
would recive huge economic relief because it was much poorer than the rest of the country. New Deal programs such as Social Security, unemployment insurance, and rural power were
very important to low-wage earners who made up most of the South's population.
4) Table 2 on page 73 give numbers for three Congresses during specific economic periods: the 70th Congress, 1927-29; 85th Congress, 1957-58; and 108th Congress, 2003-4. The table shows that congressional partisanship was much less intense in the 1950s than it was before the New Deal, or as is it is contemporarily. In each measure more overlap indicates a less polarized political system, while the absence of overlap suggests that there is not a strong political center. Table 3 on page 76 compares the average voting patterns of white voters grouped by income level in presidential elections between 1952 and 1972 on one side and 1976 and 2004 on the other. It is intended to show the strong relation between higher income levels and voting Republican.