Was president Hoover a do-nothing president?

Answer 1

He wasn't. Many liberals still call him that because they need to still believe this myth in order to argue that their interventions are necessary, but the truth is the exact opposite.

Hoover believed in strong government leadership, both in good times as well as bad. As Secretary of Commerce, he backed the "Own your own home" campaign, which is similar to Clinton's "National Homeownership Strategy". Even before the crash of '29, he signed the "Agricultural Marketing Act". He believed that public works projects were the solution to recessions and depressions, and campagned for the building of Hoover Dam even before the crash. He increased Federal spending by 60% and raised the top income tax from 20% to 80%. He signed the Smoot Hawley Tariff Act.

Most disastrously, he pressured businesses to keep wages high when their usual response to recessions was to cut wages and lower prices (a necessary move when there has been monetary deflation. There just isn't as much money to go around.) Lee Ohanian of UCLA calculates that this was the cause of 2/3 of the unemployment during the Hoover years of the Great Depression.