The 1930s and 1940s were a time when the role
and responsibility of government in overseeing
the nation’s economy were redefined. New Deal
programs followed by wartime deficit spending
showed that government could—and many felt
should—play an active role in stabilizing the
economy and creating opportunity for workers.
The Employment Act of 1946 was a dramatic
step toward this goal. This sweeping legislation
became the foundation on which the nation’s
economic policy was built for years to come. It
justified compensatory spending, tax cuts, jobcreation tax credits, and other tools advocated
by the English economist John Maynard Keynes,
which were used by numerous administrations
to buoy the U.S. economy. It also established the
President’s Council of Economic Advisers and
the congressional Joint Economic Committee—
key structures charged with the task of
conducting national economic planning. As a
result, the federal government assumed
responsibility for the nation’s economic wellbeing.
In many ways the battle that raged then in the 79th Congress foretold the current schism in
Congress between Democrats and Republicans over management of the economy. As such,
Wasem’s book, while serving as a detailed and illuminating look at a contentious period on
Capitol Hill, also provides a valuable perspective on what is a decades-old debate in which the
two sides continue to grapple with the tiller of U.S. jobs policy.
Ruth Ellen Wasem has lived on Capitol Hill and worked at the
Library of Congress since the mid-1980s. She currently works as
a policy specialist in the Domestic Social Policy Division at the
LOC. She also is an Adjunct Professor of Public Policy at the
University of Texas' LBJ School of Public Affairs (Washington
Program). She earned Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in History from
the University of Michigan, where she held research
assistantships at the Institute for Social Research. Wasem
received her B.A. degree from Muskingum University.