From FDR's New Deal to Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, the United States government attempted to centralize broad social policies. In the early 1980s, when recession and inflation were at their highest, Ronald Reagan took office and declared that the federal government should play a lesser role in the lives of the American people. As Theda Skocpol comments in her book Boomerang: Clinton's Health Security Effort and the Turn Against Government in US Politics, the Reagan administration instilled in the American people an aversion to centralized government. According to Skocpol, this is one of the main reasons why the Clinton administration failed to nationalize "health security." It is this fear of centralized government and Clinton's failure to reform health care that makes more centralized social policy unlikely in the near future. In the 20th century, there was a need (in part because of the Great Depression and World War II) for big government. The legislation behind Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal called for the involvement of the federal government to create highly bureaucratic social policy. The combination of Roosevelt's political assertiveness and society's willingness to allow such centralization made big government possible. The laissez-faire mentality of the 1920s was seen as the cause of depression. The federal government and the resulting reforms were seen as a means of providing economic security. In the years 60...