Obama's New New Deal

Nobel laureate economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman says he wants President-elect Barack Obama to enact "something like a new New Deal." Historian Douglas Brinkley has said that Obama could come to office with a "sweeping legislative agenda which will be Johnson-like or New Deal-like." An aide close to Obama told New York magazine that "A lot of people around Barack are reading books about FDR's first hundred days."

On the cusp of a deep economic recession, and with a staggering amount of bailout money being offered to struggling industries, pundits and political advisers are advocating that the incoming Obama administration construct a new New Deal.

But is the popular narrative about the old New Deal-that Keynesian economics and top-down planning rescued America from the Great Depression-accurate? Reason.tv's Michael C. Moynihan talks to UCLA economist Lee Ohanian, who argues in work written with colleague Harold Cole, that the New Deal's massive intervention into the economy actually prolonged the economic crisis by seven years.

"Obama's New New Deal" is written and produced by Michael C. Moynihan. Director of Photography is Dan Hayes.

Podcast available here.