I said I’d start with the programs passed in the Great Depression by both parties. Below is the Wikipedia entry about the New Deal. I left the hyperlinks in so you can look further if you wish. I was surprised to find virtually no laws supported by the Republican Party in that era. In fact, Republicans fought against every one of the programs mentioned in the hyperlinks. They even employed the Supreme Court to block laws that had been passed. The Democrats also tried to pass healthcare laws but realized the Republicans would block them too.
I was genuinely shocked that the Republicans in that era fought every law that would help people amid the Great Depression. In fact, it was in that era that the Republicans most often quoted attack on the Democrats came about, “tax and spend.” The Republicans believed everyone should take care of themselves and the government should never give out individual handouts. Remember my post about my Aunt Mariah? She felt Social Security should never have been passed because it was the place of children to take care of their elderly family members. She and the Republican Party weren’t heartless, but they had/have a different worldview. They knew there had always been the elderly and the poor, and they felt things like the “poorhouses” were meant to take care of those problems. Aid should not be supplied to individuals except by family members.
Wikipedia
The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the Works Progress Administration (WPA), the Civil Works Administration (CWA), the Farm Security Administration (FSA), the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 (NIRA) and the Social Security Administration (SSA). They provided support for farmers, the unemployed, youth, and the elderly. The New Deal included new constraints and safeguards on the banking industry and efforts to re-inflate the economy after prices had fallen sharply. New Deal programs included both laws passed by Congress as well as presidential executive orders during the first term of the presidency of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
