In 2004, UCLA economists calculated that FDR's policies prolonged the Great Depression by 7 years.

You would think that someone currently serving in Congress might have read about their report. Apparently not.

"The fact that the Depression dragged on for years convinced generations of economists and policy-makers that capitalism could not be trusted to recover from depressions and that significant government intervention was required to achieve good outcomes," said Harold L. Cole, UCLA professor of economics. "Ironically, our work shows that the recovery would have been very rapid had the government not intervened."