DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT HISTORY...

That should be Sarah Palin's middle name. She writes this howler in her WaPo op-ed:

...the federal government's reach into the private sector is unprecedented.

The precedents are the New Deal and the Second World War. Both saw much more government intervention than what's currently envisioned. Here's a little info abou the latter:

Roosevelt had begun establishing mobilization agencies in 1939, but none had sufficient power or authority to bring order out of the chaos generated as industry converted to war production. He therefore created the War Production Board in January 1942 to coordinate mobilization, and in 1943 an Office of War Mobilization was established to supervise the host of defense agencies that had sprung up in Washington, D.C. Gradually, a priorities system was devised to supply defense plants with raw materials; a synthetic rubber industry was developed from scratch; rationing conserved scarce resources; and the Office of Price Administration kept inflation under control.

After initial snarls and never-ending disputes, by the beginning of 1944 production was reaching astronomical totals—double those of all the enemy countries combined. Hailed at the time as a production miracle, this increase was about equal to what the country would have produced in peacetime, assuming full employment. War production might have risen even higher if regulation of civilian consumption and industry had been stricter.

SOURCE:
United States. (2009). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved July 13, 2009, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online:
http://search.eb.com/eb/article-77880