Who is the best US President, in your opinion?

[Berzerker]

DF -

the Constitution restricts the government in Article 1 Section 8 to only appropriating money for any standing army for a maximum of two years, so we shouldn't even have had the army needed to deploy that heavily.

While this has already been corrected, I just wanted to point out how the Framer's tied this appropriation to the term of the congressional House. They didn't want one congress stepping on the toes of the next. But DF is right in how the Framers wanted the US to be quite "isolationist". The notion that they would have sent their fellow Americans off to fight yet another war in Europe is unfathomable.

Ramo -

Coolidge was responsible for the crash. His high tariffs (he didn't support "small government") were significant factors contributing to the crash.

Did Hoover lower tariffs only for them to be raised again under Smoot/Halley? It's my understanding that the Federal Reserve caused the crash by tightening the money supply. As for the tariffs, I didn't know he favored high tariffs, but then again, I didn't say he was a libertarian, only that he stemmed the tide of government growth. I'd have to see what the tariffs were before he was prez and after - he may have been too pro-business...

Hans2 -

You are correct if you are of the opinion that an American life is worth more than that of a 'foreigner.' I feel sorry for you David, anyone as ignorant as you deserves pity.

Maybe David is not explaining this clearly enough. If I am about to murder several people, do you have the moral authority to point a gun at your neighbor to force him to sacrifice his life trying to stop me?
"Drafting" millions of Americans - forcing them to risk/sacrifice their lives - to stop a mass murderer in Europe cannot be morally justified.

[Berzerker]

Scott F -

"Not only did he pay off Iran to hold off releasing the hostages until he was swore in"

Care to prove that?

It's a theory that happens to explain some rather bizarre facts. The Reagan people were worried Carter would pull an "October Surprise" by getting the hostages released before the election. According to the theory, the Reagan people negotiated a deal with the Iranians to have them hold the hostages until after Reagan took office in exchange for weapons needed against the Iraqis.
The hostages were released minutes after Reagan became President and the arms began flowing shortly afterward. When the hostages were released so quickly after Reagan took office, I thought it was because the Iranians were scared of him. Now I believe they had some kind of deal. I think the Nixon people pulled a similar stunt in 1968 by shortcircuiting peace talks in Vietnam that might have secured re-election for LBJ.

[orange]

Originally posted by Ramo


Do you mean Harding (who had the "Teapot Dome" scandal)? McKinley (who also died in office) was President before TR.

Damnit...

Yes thanks for catching that. For some reason, I always get the two mixed up

Harding, not McKinley.

[orange]

Originally posted by Hans2
Richard Nixon. He definatly had his problems, but one must not forget what the biggest one was-he got caught. In this era of being apologetic (re: Clinton) I hate to say it, but if you look at what went on in the 60's what he did was no worse than LBJ.

Enough about what he did wrong, what did he do right? Ended the war in Vietnam, brought peace with China, cut the military budgets for the first time since just after WWII, signed the first signifcant arms treaties with Russia (ABM treaty and I believe SALT, though I may be wrong on that). Truly Nixon (strongly supported by Kissinger) was one of the great Statesmen on our time.

I agree, Nixon was an excellent President. As a person I wouldn't trust him one bit...but he was a great President.

[Provost Harrison]

Originally posted by Ramo
Harrison.

The only good President is a dead President.

Yep, definitely Harrison, because he had a cool name

[Giancarlo]

Originally posted by MBloomIII
Jimmy Carter. An honest man.

Yes Carter is a honest man, he is also a very nice person. I talked with him in the Swiss Hotel in Ecuador, and he was trying to help out struggling countries. He is doing good things after he left the Presidency, unfornately when he was President everything went wrong, from the economy to the hostage crisis in Iran.

My favorite presidents where: Jefferson, Nixon and Reagan. Jefferson did not like big government and was probably the one who founded the original (or part of it) democratic party. The democratic party changed from anti-big government to pro-big government as Reagan repeatably said in his autobiography, he himself was a democrat. Nixon saved the world from nuclear meltdown and pulled troops out Vietnam. He was an excellent president and shaked more hands the Clinton could ever have. He visited many countries, and opened China. Forget watergate, he had more accomplishments than other President (his accomplishments equal that of Reagan). If Nixon was never elected it is a probablitity that the world would of never existed and would of been a giant nuclear wasteland. Reagan saved the US from the 1981-1983 Recession, by creating millions and millions of jobs and helping businesses. Unemployment and Inflation were in double digits (called stagflation) when Reagan took power, and when he left the inflation was cut by 3/4s and so was unemployment. Reagan also brought alone the technological revolution.

[Giancarlo]

Originally posted by Berzerker
Scott F -

It's a theory that happens to explain some rather bizarre facts. The Reagan people were worried Carter would pull an "October Surprise" by getting the hostages released before the election. According to the theory, the Reagan people negotiated a deal with the Iranians to have them hold the hostages until after Reagan took office in exchange for weapons needed against the Iraqis.
The hostages were released minutes after Reagan became President and the arms began flowing shortly afterward. When the hostages were released so quickly after Reagan took office, I thought it was because the Iranians were scared of him. Now I believe they had some kind of deal. I think the Nixon people pulled a similar stunt in 1968 by shortcircuiting peace talks in Vietnam that might have secured re-election for LBJ.

You got your fact messed up, Reagan never did that. I care to see evidence, and not from the Pravda.

[Hoek]

Bush Sr.: Bush was probably as bad as Reagan. Look at some of the main problems we have had to deal with over the past ten years. In Iraq, lets not forget that Reagan/Bush had originally supported the Iraqis and gave him tons of weapons. It was he who supported Milosevic during the bloody civil wars of the early nineties. He cut rope after Afghanistan (and oh yeah, wasn't it him who gave the Mujahudeen CIA training?), and got us involved in a bad situation in Somalia.

Reagan: No, the debt is not equally shared by all the administrations. Until Reagan showed up, the debt was managable, and paying interest on the debt made up a relatively small portion of the budget. When he came along with his pie in the sky idea of missile defense, he ran the debt up far more than any president before (into the trillions). Not only did the debt become larger than the annual budget, it became a significant chunk of the GDP and interest payments accounted for 15-20 percent of the budget since him. His tax cuts exacerbated the situation. His process of privatization was irresponsible too. While I agree that there were too many monopolies, we see some big problems with the way we did it now. Privatization was not supposed to mean that the government didn't have a role in protecting consumers, it just meant that the government doesn't have to manage every part of, say, the airline industry. His tax cuts, however, did nothing to help the economy. Let's not forget the savings and loan collapses and subsequent bailouts under his watch. In foreign affairs, he talked alot, but was extremely shady behind the scenes. His clear violations of orders of congress should have been enough to impeach and remove him. The fact that he armed an enemy in order to fund death squads in Nicaragua, and violated an order of Congress in the meantime is downright treasonous. If you are going to criticize Clinton's foreign policies, you better damn sure hate Reagan's.

[Giancarlo]

Originally posted by Hoek
Reagan: No, the debt is not equally shared by all the administrations.

Did you know the deficit was $1 Trillion when he came into office?

Until Reagan showed up, the debt was managable, and paying interest on the debt made up a relatively small portion of the budget.

That isn't true.

His tax cuts exacerbated the situation. His process of privatization was irresponsible too. While I agree that there were too many monopolies, we see some big problems with the way we did it now.

His tax cuts saved the economy, especially the corporate ones. You being an idiot, would of been proud to see the soviets speed up ahead of the US and take over. So you can have your communist US.

His tax cuts, however, did nothing to help the economy. Let's not forget the savings and loan collapses and subsequent bailouts under his watch.

Wrong. Wrong.

This is quoted from CATO Policy Analysis No. 261

Economic Growth. The average annual growth rate of real gross domestic product (GDP) from 1981 to 1989 was 3.2 percent per year, compared with 2.8 percent from 1974 to 1981 and 2.1 percent from 1989 to 1995. The 3.2 percent growth rate for the Reagan years includes the recession of the early 1980s, which was a side effect of reversing Carter's high-inflation policies, and the seven expansion years, 1983-89. During the economic expansion alone, the economy grew by a robust annual rate of 3.8 percent. By the end of the Reagan years, the American economy was almost one-third larger than it was when they began. [13] Figure 1 shows the economic growth rate by president since World War II. That rate was higher in the 1980s than in the 1950s and 1970s but was substantially lower than the rapid economic growth rate of more than 4 percent per year in the 1960s. The Kennedy income tax rate cuts of 30 percent that were enacted in 1964 generated several years of 5 percent annual real growth.

Economic Growth per Working-Age Adult. When we adjust the economic growth rates to take account of demographic changes, we find that the expansion in the Reagan years looks even better and that the 1970s' performance looks worse. GDP growth per adult aged 20-64 in the Reagan years grew twice as rapidly, on average, as it did in the pre- and post-Reagan years.

Median Household Incomes. Real median household income rose by $4,000 in the Reagan years--from $37,868 in 1981 to $42,049 in 1989, as shown in Figure 2. This improvement was a stark reversal of the income trends in the late 1970s and the 1990s: median family income was unchanged in the eight pre-Reagan years, and incomes have fallen by $1,438 in the anti-supply-side 1990s, following the 1990 and 1993 tax hikes. [14] Most of the declines in take-home pay occurred on George Bush's watch. Under Bill Clinton's tenure, there has been zero income growth in median household income.

Employment. From 1981 through 1989 the U.S. economy produced 17 million new jobs, or roughly 2 million new jobs each year. Contrary to the Clinton administration's claims of vast job gains in the 1990s, the United States has averaged only 1.3 million new jobs per year in the post-Reagan years. The labor force United States has averaged only 1.3 million new jobs expanded by 1.7 percent per year between 1981 and 1989, but by just 1.2 percent per year between 1990 and 1995. [15]

Hours Worked. Table 1 confirms that hours worked per adult aged 20-64 grew much faster in the 1980s than in the pre -or post-Reagan years.

Unemployment Rate. When Reagan took office in 1981, the unemployment rate was 7.6 percent. In the recession of 1981-82, that rate peaked at 9.7 percent, but it fell continuously for the next seven years. When Reagan left office, the unemployment rate was 5.5 percent. This reduction in joblessness was a clear triumph of the Reagan program. Figure 3 shows that in the pre-Reagan years, the unemployment rate trended upward; in the Reagan years, the unemployment rate trended downward; and in the post-Reagan years, the unemployment rate has fluctuated up and down but today remains virtually unchanged from the 1989 rate.

Productivity. For real wages to rise, productivity must rise. Over the past 30 years there has been a secular downward trend in U.S. productivity growth. Under Reagan, productivity grew at a 1.5 percent annual rate, as shown in Figure 4. This was lower than in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s but much higher than in the post-Reagan years. Under Clinton, productivity has increased at an annual rate of just 0.3 percent per year--the worst presidential performance since that of Herbert Hoover.

Inflation. The central economic evil that Ronald Reagan inherited in 1981 from Jimmy Carter was three years of double-digit inflation. In 1980 the consumer price index (CPI) rose to 13.5 percent. By Reagan's second year in office, the inflation rate fell by more than half to 6.2 percent. In 1988, Reagan's last year in office, the CPI had fallen to 4.1 percent. Figure 5 shows the inflation and interest rate trend.

Interest Rates. In 1980 the interest rate on a 30-year mortgage was 15 percent; this rate rose to its all-time peak of 18.9 percent in 1981. The prime rate steadily fell over the subsequent six years to a low of 8.2 percent in 1987 as the inflationary expectation component of interest rates fell sharply. The prime rate hit its 20-year low in 1993 at 6.0 percent. The Treasury Bill rate also fell dramatically in the 1980s--from 14 percent in 1981 to 7 percent in 1988. In the 1990s, interest rates have continued to migrate gradually downward, as shown in Figure 5.

Savings. The savings rate did not rise in the 1980s, as supply-side advocates had predicted. In fact, in the 1980s the personal savings rate fell from 8 percent to 6.5 percent. [16] In the 1990s the average savings rate has fallen even further to an average of 4.9 percent [17]--although the rate of decline has slowed.

(Notice major fall in budget deficit at the end of 1986)



Next time you say something back it up with facts.

[orange]

Gianny where did you get those charts? They look a bit shady to me...

did you get them from www.reaganisgod.org or something?

[orange]

Originally posted by Giancarlo
You got your fact messed up, Reagan never did that. I care to see evidence, and not from the Pravda.

Bull**** he didn't.

Unless of course you believe the whole "what was going on? I'm an old man! I fall asleep at meetings! My people did this without my permission! Bad cabinet members. Bad bad bad! No more jellybeans for you"

Face it, Reagan made the deal...he should have fried for it.

Pass the Teflon

[Scott F]

Bush Sr.: Bush was probably as bad as Reagan. Look at some of the main problems we have had to deal with over the past ten years.

We must all remember this statement when in ten years we have to pay the price for the mistakes of Bill Clinton, no?

In Iraq, lets not forget that Reagan/Bush had originally supported the Iraqis and gave him tons of weapons.

That was a policy started by Carter, as I recall. The first weapon shipments to Iraq predated the Iran-Iraq War, which started in 1980 (an election year).

It was he who supported Milosevic during the bloody civil wars of the early nineties.

He's far from the only president to support people with blood on their hands. You can deride his policies all that you want, but the discussion was about how respected he was abroad. This has little to do with that.

He cut rope after Afghanistan (and oh yeah, wasn't it him who gave the Mujahudeen CIA training?),

No, again Carter started that policy. There's wonderful video footage of Carter's national security advisor addressing some Afghan rebels near the Pakistani border in which he says, "And you will win your war and defeat your enemies because your cause is just and God is on your side." Sound familiar?

and got us involved in a bad situation in Somalia.

The situation in Somalia was unfortunate, but one must note that the situation there did not deteriorate until after the Clinton administration came in, fundamentally altered the objectives of the United Nations operation in Somalia, and changed many of the basics of the mission.

It's a theory that happens to explain some rather bizarre facts. The Reagan people were worried Carter would pull an "October Surprise" by getting the hostages released before the election. According to the theory, the Reagan people negotiated a deal with the Iranians to have them hold the hostages until after Reagan took office in exchange for weapons needed against the Iraqis.
The hostages were released minutes after Reagan became President and the arms began flowing shortly afterward. When the hostages were released so quickly after Reagan took office, I thought it was because the Iranians were scared of him. Now I believe they had some kind of deal. I think the Nixon people pulled a similar stunt in 1968 by shortcircuiting peace talks in Vietnam that might have secured re-election for LBJ.

There are theories that the world is flat, man never walked on the moon, and Ross Perot is a space alien. I want to see hard proof.

Unless of course you believe the whole "what was going on? I'm an old man! I fall asleep at meetings! My people did this without my permission! Bad cabinet members. Bad bad bad! No more jellybeans for you"

Quite a contrast to how all liberals generally claim that Reagan was senile during his entire presidency anyway, isn't it? You can't have it both ways.

Reagan: No, the debt is not equally shared by all the administrations.

Proportionately, Johnson and FDR can be given more blame than Reagan, not that it justifies huge amounts of deficit spending.

Until Reagan showed up, the debt was managable, and paying interest on the debt made up a relatively small portion of the budget.

The same could be said of Johnson.

When he came along with his pie in the sky idea of missile defense, he ran the debt up far more than any president before (into the trillions).

The Federal budget deficit during that period was not caused by missile defense research. That is a typical myth. It was caused by a combination of increased defense spending (something overwhelmingly supported by Americans in the wake of humiliations abroad in Vietnam and Iran) and the fact that when Reagan wanted a tax cut, he went on television to get one. He got plenty of popular support and enraged the Democrats who controlled Congress. They decided in the next budget to spite him. They gave him a tax cut and simultaneously increased spending on social programs.

I don't care for the Cato Institute or Giancarlo's opinions, but if you look at several of his graphs you can see the spike in the deficit during 1983. That's the year that occurred. Things were straightened out a bit after that. It can be argued that the Congressional Democrats tried to hike spending to arrange for Reagan to lose the 1984 election. I don't hold that against the Democrats. The Republicans would have loved to have tried to do that against Clinton.

Not only did the debt become larger than the annual budget, it became a significant chunk of the GDP and interest payments accounted for 15-20 percent of the budget since him.

That is due in no small measure to higher interest rates. The same problems were seen during the Vietnam War under Johnson.

His tax cuts exacerbated the situation.

Yes, as it can be argued that Kennedy's tax cut made the economic consequences of Vietnam that much worse.

His tax cuts, however, did nothing to help the economy. Let's not forget the savings and loan collapses and subsequent bailouts under his watch.

See statement above. And I suppose that you will give Bush Sr. credit for instituting all of the policies that fixed those problems?

If you are going to criticize Clinton's foreign policies, you better damn sure hate Reagan's.

At least Reagan had a foreign policy. At best, Clinton had two pillars of foreign policy: I want a Nobel Prize. What can I meddle in to get one? And which country will give me the most in soft money for me to lean their way?

I could also contradict a lot of stuff that Giancarlo has said, but experience tells me that it is like arguing with a brick wall, so I will not bother.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I agree fully with what Scott said. Funny how leftists back FDR's massive deficit, but cry bloody murder at Reagan's. They wonder why we spent so much on military spending... Soviet Union, anybody?

And which idiot thinks JFK was ANYTHING close to a good president? He was a buffoon in office. He just looked nice, spoke well, and was shot. If he hadn't been killed, chances are he would have been defeated in 1964 (the Republicans wouldn't elect Goldwater, if they knew they had a chance). He approval ratings were pretty low, and the general consensus was that he was simply too young for the job. He already botched Bay of Pigs (which might have hastened Cuba wanting nuclear missiles). Also the Cuban Missile Crisis was not one (a crisis, I mean). We had missiles in Turkey, right across from the USSR for many years, and there was no nuclear war, so why did we think that there would be if there were missiles in Cuba? That is utterly ridiculous.

[Giancarlo]

Originally posted by orange


Bull**** he didn't.

Unless of course you believe the whole "what was going on? I'm an old man! I fall asleep at meetings! My people did this without my permission! Bad cabinet members. Bad bad bad! No more jellybeans for you"

Face it, Reagan made the deal...he should have fried for it.

Pass the Teflon

Go look at Carter or Clinton for a change?
And who said JFK is the best president? He is the one who was elected with the help from the mob. Always the liberals that are connected to the mob and ****.

An old man? He is much wiser than you. Or Mondale. Mondale was a young idiot.

Falling asleep at meetings? That happened twice during his two adminstrations. The bureaucrats would of put me to sleep as well.

Face it, your are anti-neo-classicist and an anti-westerner.

[Giancarlo]

Oh and another thing... I provide evidence and it still can't be respected? My opinion is backed up, the democrats here haven't back up horsecrap. Orange, a self-proclaimed communist, disagrees with me because Reagan caused the Soviet Union to collapse. Well you are in luck Orange, Cuba is still around. Go and move there maybe you will be more happy.