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LISA MULLINS: I'm Lisa Mullins, and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI, and WGBH in Boston. 76 years ago today, Franklin Delano Roosevelt began his first term as President of the United States. FDR took office during the Great Depression, and he spoke about the need for change during his 1933 inaugural address.

FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT: There must be a strict supervision of all banking and credits and investments. There must be an end to speculation with other people's money!

MULLINS: Sounds kind of familiar. FDR's New Deal is evoked by President Obama's current push to jump-start the economy and reform the financial system. And it was evoked again today, when British Prime Minister Gordon Brown addressed a joint session of the US Congress. As The World's Matthew Bell reports, Brown spoke of initiating a global new deal.

MATTHEW BELL: Gordon Brown might not have a reputation for being Mr. Charisma, but he pulled off a rousing speech on Capitol Hill today. Brown said he came to Washington to renew the special relationship between the US and Britain, at a time of great need. Past British Prime Ministers, he said, have addressed Congress during times of war.

GORDON BROWN: I come now to talk of new and different battles we must also fight together. To speak of a global economy in crisis and a planet in peril. These are new priorities for our new times.

BELL: Brown called on the United States to take the lead in confronting these challenges, and he said Britain, along with the rest of Europe, is ready to help.

BROWN: You now have the most pro-American European leadership in living memory. A leadership that wants to cooperate more closely together in order to cooperate more closely with you. There is no “old Europe”, no “new Europe”, there is only your friend Europe.

BELL: Brown called on the United States to seize the moment and lead the way in forging what he called a global New Deal. He said that can begin with coordinated international banking reforms, and these could be put in place at the upcoming London summit of the group of 20 leading economies next month.

BROWN: Let us agree at our G20 summit in London in April, rules and standards for proper accountability, transparency, and reward that will mean an end to the excesses and will apply to every bank, everywhere and all the time.

BELL: Brown said the nations of the world can achieve more toward ending the global recession if they work together to restructure their banking system, inject stimulus spending into their national economies, and reject protectionist trade barriers.

BROWN: America and a few others cannot be expected to bear all the burden of the fiscal and interest rate stimulus. We must share it globally. So let us work together for the worldwide reduction of interest rates and a scale of stimulus that is equal to the depth of the recession and around the world to the dimensions of recovery, and most of all, equal to the millions of jobs we must safeguard and create.

BELL: Brown's message for a global new deal echoes the spirit of Franklin Roosevelt's new deal. Like FDR, Brown argues that markets should serve society – not the other way around. Douglas Redicker of the New America Foundation says what's new about Brown's message is the global part.
DOUGLAS REDICKER: What he's asking of the US is for us to play the role that we ought to want the US to play, which is to provide leadership, creativity, and some idea that the world can count on the US when the chips are down to at least take a seat at the head of that table. We aren't going to be able to dictate, and I don't think the world wants us to dictate. I do think they want us to lead and provide some guidance.

BELL: Gordon Brown made a similar point to Congress about addressing the problem of global climate change.

BROWN: It's only by investing in environmental technology that we can end the dictatorship of oil. And it's only by tackling climate change that we can create the millions of new green jobs that we need and can have. For the lesson of this crisis is that we cannot just wait for tomorrow, we cannot just think of tomorrow today. We cannot merely plan for tomorrow today. Our task must be to build tomorrow today.

BELL: Brown didn't say it explicitly, but the implication is still there: if the United States doesn't take the lead on these global problems, somebody else will. For The World, I'm Matthew Bell.

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