This $700B is quite a lot by any historical measure. The snippet below is from "America Needs a New New Deal" from the WSJ.
The inflation adjustment seems a little off. I think if you used a conversion rate based on wage increases rather than consumer inflation, you'd get a closer comparison of the bailout to the New Deal. (Wage growth seems a more applicable metric, since a lot of the govt expenditures were for pay to perform the public works projects.)
Still, at least in absolute inflation-adjusted dollars, the size of the two programs is comparable. I can't believe there's not a more productive use for $700 billion in taxpayer money when you look at what we got for our nickel last time.
what really got the US out of the depression was WW2 and that cost a lot more than $700 billion in 2008 dollars.