The corporate elite has worked tirelessly for decades to convince you otherwise, but it was FDR and the New Deal that got us out of the Great Depression. The New Deal policies allowed us to transition from a war economy to a peacetime economy after WWII.
But by the time Vietnam was over there were massive loopholes in the tax code. Carter was not inclined to "stick it to the man" the way FDR did, and as a result we were hit by a pretty bad recession during his administration. When Reagan was elected people were ready to buy into the rhetoric that government was nothing but a hindrance to prosperity.
Since then the national debt has exploded, corporate profits have skyrocketed, and the middle class has shrunk.
Here is an article that pretty well describes the path we have taken since FDR.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/08/06/3003The fat cats will stop at nothing to suppress this thinking. Don't forget they tried to overthrow FDR in a coup.