Cato Ad

The Cato Ad was the ad by a pack of utterly confused, raving mad Neo-Hooverite lunatics opposed to the stimulus (despite its small size; they thought it should be smaller...). This part of the ad caught my eye:

More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s.

This is completely accurate of course. More spending by Roosevelt helped the economy a ton, and led to 8% growth, but it didn't quite finish the job (partly b/c FDR cut back spending and raised taxes to try to balance the budget). Roosevelt did, however, end the Great Depression by spending lots of money in the 1940s. Key word being 1940s rather than the 1930s. Japan also really never tried any large fiscal stimulus.