The current economic situation has been constantly compared to the Great Depression by the media. While the world and the United States are much different places today than they were in the 1920s and 1930s, there are some interesting comparisons in the way Washington tried to solve the problem.

Calvin Coolidge was the 30th President of the United States (1923-1929). When the Depression started, Coolidge was in the White House. His reaction stands in stark contrast to the way the current administration has reacted to the current economic crisis.

Coolidge, a Vermont lawyer, was no stranger to hard work and was a strong believer in self-sufficiency. His approach was to let business turn itself around. His reaction was to do nothing, “The business of America is business.”

He watched as the market forces moved in to restore prosperity. Coolidge was ridiculed by the liberal elites, of course, who secretly believed they could have handled Coolidge’s recession more humanely.

Contrast this with the approach of Coolidge’s successor Franklin Roosevelt. His approach was a series of economic stimulus packages designed to jumpstart the economy and put people back to work. Just as we are seeing today, this approach did not yield results. Unemployment persisted at 20 percent from the 1930s until the 1940s. In fact, the man who should really have gotten the credit for turning the U.S. economy around in the 1930s was Adolf Hitler.

This same failed approach to solving an economic downturn is being repeated in Washington. Billions of dollars have already been spent, and now the President is asking for billions more to put people back to work.

In a fine example of grasping at straws, USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack recently said increasing spending on the food stamp program would help stimulate the economy. He said that each dollar of food stamp spending generates $1.84 worth of economic activity out there in the “great economic beyond.”

Dennis Avery, with the Center for Global Food Issues, reacted, “I can’t think of a sadder or more realistic commentary on the Obama Administration’s clueless approach to economics.”

Today, 90 percent of Americans have a job. Another 4 percent do not want a job and will always be unemployed. This means that about 6 percent of U.S. workers want a job and cannot find one. To help this group, the U.S. government is spending billions of tax dollars.

Where are these tax dollars coming from? Avery pointed out that, “Those federal dollars had to be taxed from someone with a productive job that made things or sold things or serviced things and therefore earned profits that the government could take away.”

Is it any wonder that working Americans lack confidence in Washington’s ability to solve the problem?

So what did Calvin Coolidge know that President Obama does not?

In Coolidge’s own words, “Wealth comes from industry and from the hard experience of human toil. To dissipate it in waste and extravagance is disloyalty to humanity.”

Taxing those who are working to feed those who are not will not put American on the road to economic recovery.

The views and opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of Farm World. Readers with questions or comments for Gary Truitt may write to him in care of this publication.