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You can add to the list of Presidents that unfortunately were Johnny on the spot:
John Adams,(How could anyone look good when your predecessor is George Washington, it didn't help you suceeded by Thomas Jefferson either)
John Quincy Adams (Fist man elected by the Congess meeting as a committee of the whole, not a good start)
Martin van Buren (Had to deal with a finacial Panic likely caused by Andy Jackson who killed the The Bank of the United States).
John Tyler (It was Tippecanoe and Tyler too, we got Tyler and Texas.)
Andrew Johnson (Was just carrying out Lincoln's wishes), Would they really have impeached old Abe if he'd lived?.)
Benjamin Harrison (Fist man to be beaten by the guy he beat just 4 years before)
Lyndon B Johnson (He swore that American boys wouldn't die in the place of Asian boys, and then sent 35,000 of our guys to die in Asia. )
Gerald R. Ford (Prevented us from wallowing in Watergate for a few years and we never forgave him for it)
George H. W. Bush (Won the Gulf war in 100 hours but bit the dust when confronted by the tag team of H. Ross Perot and Bill Clinton who got fewer votes than Mike Dukakis!)
These were all men who got America through some throny issues but were sent packing after one term either by the voters or their political party.
Bush Sr. in particular I thought got screwed. He tried to soften the blow the US economy was heading for down the road by reining in spending and increasing taxes. So, we threw him out and got Clinton whom allowed rampant PRIVATE spending via the explosion of credit card debt followed by stock speculation and so forth. This of course was viewed as "prosperity" Bush Jr. kept the fake gravy train flowing after those bubbles popped with a faux housing boom and spending fueled by imaginary home equity. Obama came it and used the Reagan trick of deficit spending as it was the only one left in the bag.
In short, Bush Sr. is the only pres back to and including Reagan that tried to address our economy and cushion our descent from the post WW2 golden years where any moron could make good money by just showing up to work at the factory out of highschool.
You can add to the list of Presidents that unfortunately were Johnny on the spot:
John Adams,(How could anyone look good when your predecessor is George Washington, it didn't help you suceeded by Thomas Jefferson either) John Quincy Adams (Fist man elected by the Congess meeting as a committee of the whole, not a good start)
Interestingly, Andrew Jackson is the only man to win the most popular votes and the most Electoral College votes... and still lose! (to J.Q. Adams)
Quote:
Martin van Buren (Had to deal with a finacial Panic likely caused by Andy Jackson who killed the The Bank of the United States).
John Tyler (It was Tippecanoe and Tyler too, we got Tyler and Texas.)
Andrew Johnson (Was just carrying out Lincoln's wishes), Would they really have impeached old Abe if he'd lived?.)
Benjamin Harrison (Fist man to be beaten by the guy he beat just 4 years before)
Lyndon B Johnson (He swore that American boys wouldn't die in the place of Asian boys, and then sent 35,000 of our guys to die in Asia. )
Gerald R. Ford (Prevented us from wallowing in Watergate for a few years and we never forgave him for it) George H. W. Bush (Won the Gulf war in 100 hours but bit the dust when confronted by the tag team of H. Ross Perot and Bill Clinton who got fewer votes than Mike Dukakis!)
While I personally think George H.W. Bush remains a fairly underrated President (by Republicans because he committed the apostasy of raising taxes; by Democrats because, well, he's a Republican), I will note that Bill Clinton got over three million more votes than Michael Dukakis (Clinton got 44.9 million votes; Dukakis got 41.8 million votes).
Hoover and Bush Sr what? mediocre, failures, designated stuckees? You just threw names out with no explanation.
Worst Presidents - In my opinion William Henry Harrison and James Buchanon.
Harrison - Too dumb to put a coat on or come in out of the rain.
Buchanon - Too much of a weasl to stay around and actually run things until Lincoln took over.
I have a special category for Jimmy Carter. I think he set a standard for how an Ex President should act and has been an excellent Ex President. But I served the Carter years in the Air Force. getting stuck with 3% raises when inflation rate was 16%+ so 'we could set an example' That example hurt many of us enlisted folks (most of the married EMs were on foodstamps). I think he was probably a very caring thoughtful person but I'm not sure he had the toughness and visciousness to be a President.
Bush Sr. in particular I thought got screwed. He tried to soften the blow the US economy was heading for down the road by reining in spending and increasing taxes. So, we threw him out and got Clinton whom allowed rampant PRIVATE spending via the explosion of credit card debt followed by stock speculation and so forth. This of course was viewed as "prosperity" Bush Jr. kept the fake gravy train flowing after those bubbles popped with a faux housing boom and spending fueled by imaginary home equity. Obama came it and used the Reagan trick of deficit spending as it was the only one left in the bag.
In short, Bush Sr. is the only pres back to and including Reagan that tried to address our economy and cushion our descent from the post WW2 golden years where any moron could make good money by just showing up to work at the factory out of highschool.
The de-regulation and tacit taxpayer bailout that fueled the faux housing boom was the GLB, which preceded Bush 43. The ensuing (relatively) low interest rates in the early/mid 2000's was the business of the Fed (thank Greenspan). However, I do seem to remember Bush Jr. speaking (and i use this term loosely) about "housing for everyone" and the fervent support of National Ass. of realtors back in 2000. He certainly neglected a growing problem and deserves culpability for that.
I agree that Bush Sr. demonstrated courage by raising taxes to reduce the deficit from the preceding years. It was an unpopular move politically, but he had a good chance of carrying the presidency had Perot not entered the scene in 92'..
Herbert Hoover is blamed for the Great Depression, eventhough the depression got worse after the election of Roosevelt. And James Buchanan is also blamed for not taking much action to prevent the Civil War. I think these two Presidents are historically the most unpopular by far, I would also through Jimmy Carter into the mix!
Hoover would have come into 1932 looking lika a champion if he had simply let the Crash of 1929 play itself out. The Great Deprission didn't affect the man or woman in the street until the fall of 1931, and that would not have occurred but for the interference by "advisors" who did little more than attempt to freeze things in place and (as in 2008) protect those already at the top of the financial pecking order.
As a consolation, Hoover lived to a ripe old age and saw his role as a respected elder statesman at least partially restored.
I think it's not so much that Hoover doesn't deserve a bad rap. It's more that the rap he gets is a fairy tale, I think mostly because of that R next to his name (remember the Archie Bunker theme song)?
Hoover was as much of a big government guy as FDR. Most of what FDR did to try to end the depression were warmed-over Hoover policies:
FDR aide Rexford Tugwell would claim in a 1974 interview that “practically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs that Hoover started.”
Carter gets an undeserved bad rap--yes and no. Carter was nowhere near as bad on the economy as R's now make him out to be. He was not a big spender. Fed spending growth minus defense and entitlements under Carter: 1.6 pct., LBJ 4.1%, Nixon/Ford 6.4%, Reagan -1.4%, HW Bush 3.8%, Clinton 2.1%, W Bush 4.5% (according to Cato economist S. Slivinski).
Carter sucked in terms of style. Malaise speech, carrying up empty suitcases, etc. The fact that Carter to this day is known for his cardigan sweater tells you everything you need to know.
Hoover would have come into 1932 looking lika a champion if he had simply let the Crash of 1929 play itself out. The Great Deprission didn't affect the man or woman in the street until the fall of 1931, and that would not have occurred but for the interference by "advisors" who did little more than attempt to freeze things in place and (as in 2008) protect those already at the top of the financial pecking order.
As a consolation, Hoover lived to a ripe old age and saw his role as a respected elder statesman at least partially restored.
I think the worst distortion of history during this period is that Hoover was tagged as a do-nothing president while soup lines formed and the country had a full-scale economic meltdown. In truth, Hoover pursued a very vigorous response that would have pleased the Keynesians, had they actually existed at the time. He jacked up government spending by roughly 50% and upped the tax rates. And Morgenthau, FDR's Treasury secretary credited Hoover's recovery programs as the foundation of the New Deal programs.
So while Hoover didn't do nothing, he did a lot of damage by doing exactly the opposite. Truth is, all that government spending was not a prescriptive for the Great Depression. The huge surge in government spending did nothing to relieve the core economic problems and the skyrocketing tax rates squashed investment and consumer spending. It says a great deal that unemployment in 1939, after almost a full decade of government programs to fight poverty and unemployment, was almost as bad as unemployment in 1932. Hitler, Tojo, and Mussolini bailed America out of the Great Depression, not Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
And, while this was beyond the control of the Hoover administration, let's not forget the Federal Reserve's disastrous decision to jack up interest rates during the opening stages. This was an incredibly stupid move, the equivalent of fighting a middling brush fire by hosing it down with gasoline.
I think people would be really informed by comparing the Great Depression to the Depression of 1920. Whenever I make this statement, people look at me and ask, "What Depression of 1920?" Yet it existed, and was just as severe as the opening stages of the Great Depression. However, what makes it markedly different was the shortness of its duration, instead of being a lingering 12-year ordeal, the Depression of 1920 was over in a matter of 18 months. What was also markedly different was the government response during the early phases. Rather than hike taxes and spending, the government instead slashed spending and tax rates. That's why the Depression of 1920 is scarcely a blip in American economic history today.
Last edited by cpg35223; 12-05-2013 at 06:27 AM..
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Bush Jr. kept the fake gravy train flowing after those bubbles popped with a faux housing boom and spending fueled by imaginary home equity. Obama came it and used the Reagan trick of deficit spending as it was the only one left in the bag.
