Deja Vu (all over again)?

In "FDR's Folly", Cato Institue's Jim Powell attempts to debunk how President Roosevelt's "New Deal" programs brought America out of the Great Depression.  He makes a compelling case citing how FDR's "alphabet soup" programs really created uncertainty and employment costs to the point that many companies were reluctant to hire new employees.

Thanks to the insight of many, particularly Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, we avoided a repeat of the Great Depression in 2008.  Mr. Bernanke, a scholar of the Great Depression, was determined to keep his Federal Reserve from repeating the mistakes that precipated a financial liquidity crisis in the late 1920's. 

President Hoover, who initiated some recovery measures, felt that given enough time, the economy would recover without massive government intervention.  He cited the administrations of Grover Cleveland and Warren Harding who presided over serious financial crises by allowing the markets "to clear" on their own with some government action and stimulus. 

Now fast forward to 2010.  The current health reform bill has created such uncertainty that employers, who need to hire more help, are holding off.  They just don't know how much it will cost to hire new employees.  Sound eerily familiar?

Government "even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."

 -- Thomas Paine