According to President Barack Obama, Franklin D. Roosevelt, long regarded as a free-spending President, was actually “fiscally conservative.” What’s more, said Obama, Roosevelt’s “austerity” hampered the economic recovery being wrought by the New Deal, leading to a downturn in 1937 — a warning to leaders who think now is the time to begin slashing federal spending.

Obama offered this analysis of FDR’s alleged fiscal conservatism during the course of a July 22 town hall meeting at the University of Maryland, reports CNSNews.com. Said the President: “FDR comes in, he tries all these things with the New Deal; but FDR, contrary to myth, was pretty fiscally conservative.”

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Photo of Franklin Delano Roosevelt: AP Images