In 1953 in his first Inaugural Address, Dwight Eisenhower talked about the positive impacts of government. Thirty years later Ronald Reagan castigated the role of government.  Twelve years after that we heard this from Bill Clinton that “the era of big government is over.”  

So what happened?  What happened to the partnership between business, the government and citizen that resulted in so much success and prosperity in the post war years?  What happened to the progressive agenda once embarrassed by Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt?  And what is the price we are paying today for the absence of that partnership?

Author and Professor Paul Pierson talks to me about all of this in on discussion of American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper.

My conversation with Paul Pierson: