The debate surrounding the Affordable Care Act continues -- remarkably -- more than three years after it was signed into law. Both liberals and conservatives alike seem to understand that this is not only the signature accomplishment of Barack Obama's presidency, but the most important extension of the New Deal since the adoption of Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s. Indeed, the healthcare debate is a reminder that, after eighty years, the New Deal remains as the basic framework for American domestic policy and it is still going strong.
When we go back to examine the debates between Franklin Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover about the New Deal in the 1930s , we come back with a better understanding of principles underlying the public policy debates today. Both Franklin D. Roosevelt and Herbert Hoover agreed that the quarrel of the 1932 election was, as Hoover said, “more than a contest between two men, more than a contest between two parties.” It was a contest, said Hoover, “between two philosophies of government” that would decide “the direction our nation will take over a century to come.” Roosevelt agreed: March 4, 1933 (his inauguration as president) marked the transformation of America. It was an historic clash between liberty and democracy.
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