It's the FDR / New Deal worship factor. In reality, when the Great Depression started, even Hoover did not have the stones to let all the bad debt work itself out and to resist the temptation of heavy government involvement in the crisis. FDR, seeing his opportunity, given all of the poorly financially educated minions who had leveraged themselves into the hole during the unreal days of horrible P/E ratios, knew that he could build on the already established interventionist tactics of Hoover and turn the whole thing into "economic rescue by government" on steroids. In fact, Hoover's small intervention made things worse, and FDR's major intervention made things FAR worse. But the people, now sensing something wholly new, namely, the US government interjecting itself right into the core of the economy, had their quick fix of entitlements and so was the "gimme" culture born.
FDR then went on to overspend socially and underspend militarily, setting the stage for the near defeat of the US and UK during the outset of the hottest (2nd) phase of WW2, and thereby manufactured yet another crisis which would call for even MORE government intervention. By the time the war was over, the "Greatest Generation" as well as the teenaged Silent Generation and the toddling earlist Boomers had been conditioned to accept socialism lite as well as the whole idea of a government "final safety net" to protect them from any future sudden major equity adjustments.
What a mess.
Indeed, FDR even lampooned Hoover for his interventionist tactics during the presidential campaign. Candidate Roosevelt 1932 was a very different man from President Roosevelt 1933.
You have it about right. You did not mention the democratic party run AARP. They support anything that will hurt Bush. (Even though Bush got their support for his drug plan, they AARP quickly kicked him in the rear by saying that the plan was not all they wanted. The AARP has been agains private accounts because they will take money from the government and keep it in private hands, thus the government has less to spend to buy democratic votes. Of course taking the money from the government is the only way to stop the government from spending it. Much of the ove 55 crowd believe the AARP is looking our for their interests, and overlook the support for democratic party interests, but FDR was part of the democratic party, so maybe they are the same.