Things that make me go hmm… The Inevitable Hoover-Obama Comparisons

Recently I started reading The Forgotten Man and was struck with some of the similarities between the Hoover and Obama presidencies. I was also struck how both administrations have been stuck by unintended consequences. The Smoot”“Hawley Tariff Act was supposed to protect American jobs and farmers. The unintended consequence was that it reduced exports dramatically and generally blamed as one of the leading causes of the Great Depression. The Obama policies during the first two years seem to have generated similar unintended consequences. The stimulus package was supposed to create jobs and lead us out of the recession. The unintended effect is the near panic over the size of the deficit and the size of government spending. Although the Obama administration has talked the talk about jobs, the actions by the EPA and the Drilling Moratorium have been unintended job killers. The longer we go without a jobs recovery the more likely we are going to Hoover comparisons and posts like Mister, we’ve got a man just like Herbert Hoover again…