There is a long tradition which views Roosevelt's policies as both ineffective and unjustifiable. In 1933, he confiscated privately-held gold by executive order in 1933. That same year, he instituted a policy paying farmers to slaughter their livestock and leave their fields fallow. The effects of this policy are described (in somewhat flowery language) in John Steinbeck's 1939 novel The Grapes of Wrath. He then attempted to pack the courts in 1937.

It's notable that none of these policies were particularly effective. Of the major industrial economies of the period, only France lagged behind America in terms of economic recovery.