A trip down memory lane: “In this time of unprecedented economic and social distress the Democratic Party declares its conviction that the chief causes of this condition were the disastrous policies pursued by our government. … The only hope for improving present conditions, restoring employment, affording permanent relief to the people and bringing the nation back to the proud position of domestic happiness and of financial, industrial and commercial leadership in the world lies in a drastic change in economic government policies. We advocate an immediate and drastic reduction of government expenditures by abolishing useless commissions and offices, consolidating departments and bureaus and eliminating extravagance to accomplish a saving of not less than 25 percent in the cost of the federal government.”

Wow. In their 1932 platform, Democrats called for cutting government spending by at least 25 percent and blamed the Great Depression on the “extravagant” government spending of the Hoover administration!

This, of course, is the exact opposite of what the liberal press pawns off on us as history. Their distortion goes something like this: Hoover was a free-market man, refusing to “save” the country by pumping federal dollars into the economy. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) is hailed as a hero, the New Deal saved the day and Hoover and his free-market ways were cast into the history bin. The lesson: The free market does not work and Obama needs to copy FDR and spend us back into prosperity.

The facts: FDR actually attacked Hoover and labeled his deficit spending as dangerous and out of control. FDR heartily endorsed not only a reduction of government spending but even embraced the 1932 Democratic Party plank demanding a federal balanced budget. FDR won with what today we would describe as a mandate for fiscal conservatism.

Democrats in 2009 try to conjure up a brotherhood with the old school Democrats but it doesn’t fly. Your grandfather’s Democratic Party would be repelled by the modern (non) Democratic embrace of sodomy and abortion as its twin pillars of democratic virtue. And its fiscal policies that mirror the (failed) Republican Hoover spend-us-into-prosperity-delusion would make them shake their heads in disgust.

So how disciplined and committed was Hoover? As FDR so adroitly attacked him over, Hoover openly embraced the notion of federal spending to the rescue. Mirroring today, his first apostasy from his supposed orthodoxy was the panacea of public works.

In 1930, Hoover got Congress to approve massive spending on roads, public buildings, air fields and river and waterway projects. This included Hoover Dam right here in Nevada.

In 1932, the Hoover-sponsored Reconstruction Finance Corporation lent in today’s dollars hundreds of billions to railroads, banks, building and loan associations, insurance companies, farm mortgage associations and individual state governments. In modern parlance, loaning money to “businesses too big to fail” was the game plan.

The 1932 Glass Steagull Act expanded credit and reduced collateral requirements and dumped billions of the government’s gold reserves into the credit pool. Hoover also passed the Federal Home Loan Bank Act to ease pressure on folks losing their homes. Its purpose was to relieve homeowners who could not meet their mortgage payments.

Reviewing it all brings on an eerie déjà vu feeling. Our current path is not exactly new.

All of this Hoover-promoted spending grossly unbalanced the federal government budget — which the Democrats blamed for the lack of economic recovery.

Ira Hansen is a lifelong resident of Sparks and owner of Ira Hansen and Sons Plumbing. You can reach him at irahansen@sbcglobal.net.