Who, in your opinion, is the greatest US President?

Of all time, mine would unquestionably be Lincoln.

 

I appreciate Reagan for what he was, but I don't have false memories of his time in office. His deregultions especially impacted my "second job" since I drove semi in the off season on the farm to make some extra bucks. His deregulation of the trucking industry, put me out as an independent who would lease on to other trucking firms and haul. My good reputation and self-insurance ability had NO impact on my ability to get work with the "nobodies" who were willing to drive for literally nothing. And that is what many of them delivered, nothing. His "canning" of the air traffic controllers impacted my family directly (or rather by step-mother), her son-in-law of thirty years committed suicide when the "lock-out" was put in place. Ira didn't know any other work, was too old to retrain for another, and had just purchased a new home that he now couldn't keep up the payments on. Ate his father's pistol one night.

As to "Trickle down, Reaganomics", George H.W. Bush was right the first time when he called it "voodoo economics".

At no time since 1945 when Republicans have been in total charge of both elected branches of government have they ever reduced government spending.
In the Reagan years the government really got into borrowing to pay its bills. Government debt rose from $908 billion in 1980 after the Carter years, to $2.6 trillion in 1988 at the end of the Reagan terms; approximately a 200% increase. By the end of the 1980s the percentage of workers in manufacturing jobs had decreased by one-fifth, that is a 20% loss.

The U.S. trade deficit climbed from $24.2 billion in 1980 to a high of $152.7 billion in 1986. The last year President Clinton was in office the government had to borrow $18 billion dollars. The first year President Bush the Second was in office he had to borrowed $133 billion, with essentially the same Congress that Clinton had.

Since 1938 the Democrats have held the White house for 35 years, the Republicans for 36. Over that time the national debt has increased at an average annual rate of 8.5%. In years Democrats were in the White House there was an average increase of 8.3%. In years the Republicans ran the White House the debt increased an average 9.2% per year. Those averages aren’t that far apart, but they do show a bias toward more borrowing by Republicans than Democrats even including World War II.

If you look at the 60+ year record of debt since the end of WWII, starting with Truman’s term, the difference between the two parties’ contributions to our national debt level change considerably. Since 1946, Democratic presidents increased the national debt an average of only 3.2% per year. The Republican presidents stay at an average increase of 9.2% per year. Republican Presidents out borrowed and spent Democratic presidents by a three to one ratio. Putting that in very real terms; for every dollar a Democratic president has raised the national debt in the past 63 years Republican presidents have raised the debt by $2.84.

See:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/pdf/hist.pdf

Contrary to popular myths, the only time America has seen national debt reduction in the past 60 years was when Democrats were totally in charge of our government or when one party was in the White House and another ran Congress. In the past 60 years when Republicans were in control of the presidency and both Houses of Congress, neither debt, nor government spending was ever reduced. The last time a Republican Congress reduced the national debt was in 1947, under President Truman’s leadership.

The very last time the national debt was actually reduced was in the last quarter of 1961 during President Kennedy’s first year in office. It has been almost a half century (46 years), since this nation has paid down any of its exponentially increasing debt. It is sort of curious to note that since LBJ, every Democratic President has increased revenue more than spending. However in the opposite case, under all five Republican Presidents, since Nixon, government revenue has decreased and spending has increased.


Many a "Reaganite" blames a tax and spend Democratically controlled Congress for the "big spending" during his administration, even though Congress was split, and Republicans controlled the Senate for the first six years of Reagan’s two terms.
Only during the last two years of the Reagan administration was the Congress completely controlled by Democrats, and the spending records show that the growth of the debt slowed during this period. It appears to myself that; contrary to the Reagan myth, in truth he was a world class, record setting spender and government expander.

I, in spite of all these feelings actually liked R.W.R., he was a great communicator. Too bad it was a "don't worry, be happy" message really.

 

For those of you who lived through it, what were the most odious aspects of Nixon?

 

I confess that I have tried to find a way to say that Ike was the best post-war President but I don't know that I can do it. I have to say the same about Reagan and every other president that we have had since WWII. My issue is not with the men, but with my belief that the the role of the US President has diminished rapidly over the years. The Reagan presidency saw huge advances but I am not convinced that we can attribute that to the president. We live in an age of Congressional control. I really think it is the US Senate and House of Representatives that define our leadership.

 

While I realize Lincoln is probably the most popular president of many, objectively, he was probably one of the worst leaders with which this country has ever been cursed.

It's undeniable that he was the only US president during whose administration a bloody civil war was ignited. Furthermore, it was over an issue for which a solution had already been demonstrated, a solution which Lincoln adamantly refused to even consider. Given such an abject failure, Lincoln cannot truly be considered among the successful presidents.

 

Top quote. People do assume we're a monarchy of course but as far as I'm concerned we're a republic with a monarch as figurehead and have been since the English Civil War, well just after.

The Queen lacks any real executive power so we're very much in the hands of whichever mob runs the government. Can't think of any other nation really like it. Dreadfully undemocratic of course.

 

IMO, after Kennedy, who was only just getting into his stride at the time of his assassination, Josiah Bartlett is the best post-War president the USA never had.

Steve W.

 

In what ways?

 

Anyone who can go past the Bridge at Dong Ha has my respect.

 

Ni, ni, ni, ni....Now off you go and bring me a shrubbery....

That was a great movie, sober or drunk....

I've always been a Teddy Roosevelt man myself. Bully. Where's my big stick? Pendecaris alive or Rassouli dead....