For the last 80 or so years now Big Government and activist groups good intentions have been tried to help "The People" and has created far more problems than it has solved. Good intentions are admirable but when their poor results are constantly ignored and not learned from the mistakes and poor results will continue, but as long as the people with good intentions "feel better" about themselves and their initial acts look good then everything is okay. Also if those with good intentions can make those with undesirable good ideas of ingenuity, the free market and individual responsibility look bad that is a plus.

In the 1920's the U.S. under Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge had some of it's best economic times. The U.S. by the end of the decade produced 34% of the worlds GDP followed by England and Germany at 10%. In 1926 unemployment was at 1% under Andrew Mellon who served as Secretary of Treasury under both Presidents. How did they achieve such prosperity? They dramatically lowered taxes which in turn increased revenue and stayed out of the way of the economy and American People and they stay out of nasty world affairs. This is probably why many historians over the decades don't give them high marks because they limited government, lowered taxes and avoided social welfare plans and schemes.

Hoover should have followed Harding who let the downturn of '20-21 work itself out, instead he made the '29-30 recession the Great Depression with a year of non-stop government intervention. First by demanding businesses keep wages high, second by interfering in agriculture, because of WWI, farm production dramatically increased but afterwards there were too many farmers. Hoover created The Federal Farm Board and paid farmers no to produce, if left alone many of the farms would have shut down and other areas of production increased instead farmers were paid not to produce and dictate prices and other industries floundered. Hoover raised taxes on over 25,000 imported items making them harder to buy and exports were in turn hit with tariffs making our products harder to sell. He continued to interfere in business, increase government spending and things continued to get worse. In comes FDR whose policies were not original but expansions of Hoover. More government intervention that resulted in artificially high wages and prices which resulted in job losses, hardships for the people and uncertainty in what the government would do next caused investors to stay away. Government did not get us out of the depression it extended it three to four years.

LBJ and the Great Society created generational welfare, destroyed the family structure, and created government paid health care when most of that care was done Pro bono before government intervention. The poor had better health care access before Medicare. Medicare increased costs in the long run as services that were voluntarily done for free or reduced prices are no longer done increasing prices for everyone. Government intervention through numerous intrusive regulations by the EPA which had good intentions to hold business responsible for pollution has since been abused by activists to put a stranglehold on them instead. If business meets standards raise the standard and fine them again, it's been the free market that has cleaned the air, water and cut back on pollution not government. People keep pointing at the poor in New Orleans calling for government help when it has been government policies and welfare that created the problem of dependency.

Other good intentions that kill are the false scare of Frankenfood. Agriculturalists and farmers have created safe efficient ways to grow more pest and weather resistant food and better farming techniques but the good intentioned environmentalist convinced thousands of Africans it was better to starve today than risk cancer in twenty years. Food rotted in ports and people went hungry. DDT banned-- OOPS doesn't cause cancer ten million poor people die needlessly of malaria, SORRY! we meant well! Now we must stop CO2 from pollution, the same pollution we exhale and is emitted by oceans and rotting foliage, and if it is causing food shortages so be it. If poor countries must stay ill equipped because Kyoto is better, we think, maybe, then so be it our good intentions will make us feel better.

Now we need to make the government even bigger and put it in charge of more things to screw up, Nationalized health care, mortgage bailouts, carbon taxes, ban any use of our own natural resources. If it's a choice between FDR and Calvin Coolidge, big government and evil unfettered free markets. I will pick Coolidge and free markets, contrary to popular belief they worked much better. The economy will have highs and lows and it always works itself especially when the government stays out of it.