Who was the best president of the last fifty years?

Reagan won... what a joke. He is the guy who:

1) Started massive deficit spending with his tax cuts and supply side economics.
2) Built upon massive wasteful military spending, which has been paid for with debt.
3) Funded the "muhadeen" in Afghanistan, which created "al Qeada"
4) Illegally sold guns to the Contra's and provided missiles to Iran
5) Support Saddam's use of Chemical weapons.

Reagan is one of the worst.... Bush jr. beats him at his own game, because basically he takes Reagan's badness and makes it worse, with even bigger deficits, and creating ISIS, with a much higher body bag count for his idiotic military folly.

 

Funny, conservatives claimed Clinton's big 1993 tax increase would wreck the economy, destroy jobs, and increase the deficit, just like you do:

Rep. Robert Michel (R-IL), Los Angeles Times, 5/28/93: They will remember who let loose this deadly virus into our economic bloodstream.

Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-GA), GOP Press Conference, House TV Gallery, 8/5/93:
believe this will lead to a recession next year. This is the Democrat machine's recession, and each one of them will be held personally accountable.

Rep. John Kasich (R-OH), 8/5/93: Do you know what? This is your package. We will come back here next year and try to help you when this puts the economy in the gutter...

Rep. John Kasich (R-OH), CNN, 7/28/93: This plan will not work. If it was to work, then I'd have to become a Democrat...

Rep. Robert Dornan (R-CA), 8/5/93: The problem with our economy is that there is too little employment and too little growth. This plan will do nothing to improve that condition and will actually make it worse.

Rep. Christopher Cox (R-CA), 5/27/93: This is really the Dr. Kevorkian plan for our economy.

Rep. Thomas Ewing (R-IL), 8/5/93: ...This bill is a disaster waiting to happen.

Rep. Jim Ramstad (R-MN), 3/17/93: ...will stifle economic growth, destroy jobs, reduce revenues, and increase the deficit.

Rep. Phil Crane (R-IL), 3/18/93: ...a recipe for economic and fiscal disaster.

Rep. Dick Armey (R-TX), CNN, 8/2/93: The impact on job creation is going to be devastating, and the American young people in particular will suffer a fairly substantial deferment of their lives because there simply won't be jobs for the next two to three years to go around to our young graduates across the country.

Rep. John Kasich (R-OH), 5/27/93: ...your economic program is a job killer.

Rep. Dick Armey (R-TX), 8/5/93: The economy will sputter along. Dreams will be put off and all this for the hollow promise of deficit reduction and magical theories of lower interest rates. Like so many of the President's past promises, deficit reduction will be another cruel hoax.

Rep. Wally Herger (R-CA), 8/4/93: The simple fact is that the Clinton plan will not lower interest rates. It will not lower inflation. It will not create jobs. And it will no lower the deficit. The Clinton tax plan will spur inflation, lose jobs, increase the deficit, and hurt our economic growth.

Rep. Deborah Pryce (R-OH), 5/27/93: The votes we will take today will not be soon forgotten by the American voter. [They] will lead to more taxes, higher inflation, and slower economic growth.

Rep. John Kasich (R-OH), GOP News Conference, Senate Gallery, 8/3/93: Come next year... we're going to find out whether we have higher deficits, we're going to find out whether we have a slower economy, we're going to find out what's going to happen to interest rates, and it's our bet that this is a job killer.

Rep. Dick Armey (R-TX), CNN, 8/2/93: Clearly this is a job killer in the short run. The revenues forecast for this budget will not materialize; the costs of this budget will be greater than what is forecast. The deficit will be worse, and it is not a good omen for the American economy.

Rep. Jim Bunning (R-KY), 8/5/93: It will not cut the deficit. It will not create jobs. And it will not cut spending.

Rep. Dick Armey, CNN, 2/18/93: I will tell you, this program will not give you deficit reduction. It will be a disaster for the performance of the economy.

Rep. Clifford Stearns (R-FL), 3/17/93: ...It will be the kind of impact that this country can't absorb. It will slow economic growth, contribute to the massive federal deficit....

Rep. Joel Hefley (R-CO), 8/4/93: ...It will raise your taxes, increase the deficit, and kill over one million jobs.

www.congressmatters.com/storyonly/2009/2/15/92441/0913/399/636

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Instead during the time of the Clinton tax increase we saw the longest sustained period of growth post WWII, a record 23 million additional jobs created, poverty levels dropping to all time lows, stock markets tripling even with the correction, the unemployment rate dropping to the lowest level in decades, real incomes rising for all income classes, and the best average annual real GDP growth since the 1960s. Oh yeah, and a then record deficit turning into a surplus.

Could conservatives be more wrong?

 

RW propaganda. The Clinton tax increase was passed before the Republicans took Congress. It was the Democrats that passed that tax increase that flooded the Treasury with additional revenues and helped turn a then record deficit in the golden opportunity of a surplus budget. Republicans opposed it right down the line because it increased taxes on the richest.

 

No, the CRA was around decades before Clinton, and wasn't the cause of the massive housing speculative bubble.

 

I chose Richard Nixon, because he was probably the most cunning politician in the history of the United States. In general, I think that US politics needs more machiavellians.

 

As did lots of economist but the recovery was stronger than predicted it had nothing to do with Clinton so what is your point, it slowed growth and slowed the growth of tax revenues rather than increasing them as liberals predicted.

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And that tax increase slowed the growth of revenues as has been demonstrated to you over and over, why do you keep misrepresenting the data? Tax revenue growth slowed from 9% down to 7% and it was the Republican tax rate cuts that got the economic growth back on target and revenue growth got back on target and revenue growth hit double digit.

 

Well of course. Anything positive when a Dem is in office has nothing to do with him but anything negative is all his fault.

Slowed tax revenues you say?

Year - Revenues - % chng
1990 1,032.0 4.1%
1991 1,055.0 2.2%
1992 1,091.2 3.4% <- Clinton tax increase.
1993 1,154.3 5.8%
1994 1,258.6 9.0%
1995 1,351.8 7.4%
1996 1,453.1 7.5%
1997 1,579.2 8.7%
1998 1,721.7 9.0%
1999 1,827.5 6.1%
2000 2,025.2 10.8%

Only in Bluesguy world, where up is down and down is up.
It's easier to be a conservative when you employ rank double standards.

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Why do you leave out the fact that 2/3's of the additional revenues from the 1993 tax increase,
<Rule 2>, the Clinton tax rate increase did not even get signed into law until AUGUST 1993, did not have to be paid until 1995 and we see even with the higher rates, even with the delayed revenues revenue growth fell?

The fact is revenues were heading to double digit increases and the Clinton rate hike slowed that revenue growth,
<Rule 3>

 

My bad, I mistakenly mis-labelled the Clinton tax increase on this one. He took office in 1993 and his supposedly job killing revenue cutting tax increase was passed that year.

Here's the corrected table

Year - Revenues - % change
1990 1,032.0 4.1%
1991 1,055.0 2.2%
1992 1,091.2 3.4%
1993 1,154.3 5.8% <- Clinton tax increase.
1994 1,258.6 9.0%
1995 1,351.8 7.4%
1996 1,453.1 7.5%
1997 1,579.2 8.7%
1998 1,721.7 9.0%
1999 1,827.5 6.1%
2000 2,025.2 10.8%

Thanks for pointing that out. Now everyone can clearly see how revenue growth tumbled after the Clinton tax increase.

For the record, Bluesguy modified my post, thereby misquoting.

I'd ask you not to do that, or I'll start doing it to yours.

 

That was your cut and paste boiler plate which you editted.

I corrected it already.

Again why do you leave out the fact that the revenues were deferred until 1995 and 1996 and that even with those differed revenues and the higher rate revenue growth slowed.

The bolded corrections are quite clear.

 

I didn't leave off anything and presented all years:

Year - Revenues - % chng
1990 1,032.0 4.1%
1991 1,055.0 2.2%
1992 1,091.2 3.4%
1993 1,154.3 5.8% <- Clinton tax increase.
1994 1,258.6 9.0%
1995 1,351.8 7.4%
1996 1,453.1 7.5%
1997 1,579.2 8.7%
1998 1,721.7 9.0%
1999 1,827.5 6.1%
2000 2,025.2 10.8%

Revenues boomed after the Clinton/Democratic tax increase, growing far faster that GDP growth, and the resulting hundreds of billions in additional revenues were responsible for the then record deficit turning into a surplus. Short lived as it was before it was squandered.

In 2001, with the Bush tax cuts, we saw the opposite.

 

<Rule 2/3>



Year - Revenues - % chng
1990 1,032.0 4.1%
1991 1,055.0 2.2%
1992 1,091.2 3.4% <- NopeClinton tax increase. Nope
1993 1,154.3 5.8% <- Clinton tax increase signed AUGUST 1993
1994 1,258.6 9.0%
1995 1,351.8 7.4% <-"Taxpayers who owed additional 1993 taxes due to the
OBRA93 tax rate increases were given the option of
deferring payment of two-thirds of the tax that was in
excess of the tax that would have been owed at the 31
percent rate. Half of the deferral taxes were to be paid in
1995 and the remaining half in 1996 [2].
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/93inintrts.pdf
1996 1,453.1 7.5%
1997 1,579.2 8.7% -> Gingrich/Kasich tax rate cuts
1998 1,721.7 9.0%
1999 1,827.5 6.1%
2000 2,025.2 10.8%

Inspite of the higher rates and deferred tax revenues coming due the rate of revenue growth SLOWED, only in Iriemons world is a drop from 9% to 7% and increase.

As already demonstrated, revenues growth was already on a strong upward curve BEFORE the Clinton tax rate increase and once that rate increase went into effect it slowed that rate of increase even with the deferred revenue coming due.

It was the Gingrich/Kasich tax rate cuts to got the increase back on track and into double digits.

<Rule 3>

 

lol seriously. This is a real thread.

 

Obama and Clinton are the best for the past 50 years




as for the pathetic Republicans, if we were allowed to go back 60 year, we would like Ike:

 

Now you are dancing on the pinhead of logic and reality.......FDR ranks in the Top 5 of U.S. President's on almost every historian's list since they have been making them. His ideas, and he tried everything, to pull America out of the worst depression it had ever seen, financial, moral and even natural disaster (The Dust Bowl), were absolute necessities. What FDR gave back to America was HOPE, not the Hope-Obama garbage that the liberal's of today, who are not the liberals of the 1930's, manufactured into a false narrative with a strawman like Obama disguised as the Wizard.

WPA; Closing the banks (FDIC); CCC (an American version of Kennedy's Peace Corps and one which is desperately needed again in this country - use it for the illegal immigrant's); TVA electrification; Hoover Dam (started under Hoover, completed under Roosevelt); The Farm Bureau; NRA; Roosevelt got this country moving again - and gave the Middle Class and farmers, which had been destroyed, with 1/3 or the country out-of-work; the hope it needed to right itself in time to generate the American industrial machine to fight the Nazi's, the largest threat to American security in history.

FDR was no more responsible for the rise of Hitler and the Nazi's than Churchill or Foch were. England and France could have eliminated Hitler as early as 1936, and 1939, with no difficulty at all. They sat on their haunches, and did nothing, until Hitler's panzers, having conquered Poland, moved West, and out flanked the BEF and French forces, causing France to fall in 6-weeks, and England to send a flotilla of garbage sloops and sailboats to rescue their troops off of Dunkirk's beaches, leaving all their equipment behind.

There was a clear isolationist movement in America right up until December 6, 1941, with a sizable German Lobby, led by American hero Charles Lindburgh, a Hitler admirer and appeaser. Although isolationist, the war Hitler started in 1939, allowed American industry to leap forward out of the depths of the depression, producing war supplies. England, our natural ally, was the favored nation of American's but we naively thought we could stay out of the war. Roosevelt thought he could bluff Japan, which had come onto the world stage with the shogun / warlord government and military by a surprise attack over the Russians in 1905, and building a modern, solid, dangerous navy.

Through FDR's behind the scene activities with Churchill, he got Lend Lease passed through Congress, saving England from a war he knew we would have to fight, but were in no position militarily or national will to fight. He tried to bully Japan into submission and kept them in check by cutting off their oil, and scrap metal supply we were sending them, and moving U.S. Western Naval headquarters to Hawaii from San Diego in an effort to intimidate their navy. They returned the favor by using that modern navy to steam 12,000 miles through the Northern Pacific, unseen, and destroy Pearl Harbor with bombs and old Buick parts we had shipped them for years.

Hitler did America a favor by declaring war against us right after the Pearl Harbor attack, because i gave Admiral King and Army Chief of Staff George C. Marshal the chance to convince Roosevelt that a Germany First policy was the way to go, and leave Japan for later, despite arousing every fighting instinct in the Yankees to go after the Japanese "Yellow Peril." This was the first important decision of World War II for America (Truman had the second with the atomic bomb use). Raising an untrained, new army from recruits, known as G.I.'s (General Issue soldiers), the U.S. Army never lost a battle to the much more veteran Nazi led German General Staff, in operation for 100-years from Prussia. That untrained American army, if one dismisses the brush at Kasserine Pass in North Africa (when Patton was sent to take control and right the ship), won every battle of World War II, except Pearl Harbor and Clarke Field in the Philippines.

Knowing the fighting spirit and fanatical hatred and suicidal capabilities of the Japanese army in the American Army, Navy and Marines island hopping campaign across the Pacific (the U.S. Marines got too much good publicity from World War I that Marshal and King kept them out of the European campaign), Roosevelt was faced with the fact that he needed the USSR to turn on the Japanese as soon as Germany was defeated. That is why he gave in so much to Stalin, for the promise of the Russian Army moving to help in conquering what was originally considered to be a necessary attack on the Japanese Home Islands, with estimates of 1 million dead or wounded.

FDR knew about the Manhattan Project (so did Stalin - Truman didn't), but wasn't certain it would work. Once he died, and Truman took office, he gave, in the face of the sudden German collapse in Europe, the go ahead to use it on two industrial targets in Japan to avoid that direct confrontation with the Japanese on their Home Islands. Their loss of almost every man of a 22,000 army hold up on Iwo Jima, and even more on Okinawa, the first two Japanese home territories the U.S. invaded, convinced Truman and the military to use the bomb. Russian help by now wasn't needed.

Truman used Russian promises not to advance past the chop lines of their army when Germany surrendered, and thus threatened to go to war with them, pushing them out of Greece and Turkey. Unless America was willing to fight the USSR in Europe in 1945, something the American public would never support - there was little we could do to save Eastern Europe. Half of Germany - Czechoslovakia; Hungary; Romania; Poland; Yugoslavia, the Soviet Army had "boots on the ground" there, it would have taken a mega American effort to move them, and it probably would have resulted in Truman's impeachment. We couldn't have beaten the USSR in 1945 without using atomic bombs.

In all respects, Truman was as tough as Stalin, while Churchill's influence had fallen, as the British tried to convince America that saving the British Empire and winning the war were the same thing - they were not. Roosevelt didn't instigate a war for America, he was helpless until December 7th, 1941 changed America's isolationist opinion. How unprepared we were for war, American cities on the East Coast took six months to go to blackout, giving German U-Boats "black cats on a white moon" images to destroy American shipping to Europe, within 1/2 mile of U.S. East Coast cities. American's watched as the U-Boat's sank ship after ship of the Lend Lease supplies, right off of our shores. The Battle for the Atlantic was as important to winning World War II as the Battle of the Pacific was.

For all of that, FDR ranks up there in the top three of Lincoln; Washington and FDR as President's. It wasn't FDR who started the policy of containment of the USSR after World War II, it was Truman, and there was no way the United States or the Western Powers could have ever saved China in 1949 from falling to communism, unless we had decided to nuke every Chinese city, and we didn't have the bomb making resources to do that, nor the will. It was Douglas MacArthur's idea and insistence during Korea, that the way to end that war was to nuke all of China's cities, and unleash the Nationalist Army on Taiwan, which couldn't fight its way out of a Hong Kong whorehouse, that got him sacked by Truman, another U.S. President who is in the Top Ten. Your opinion regarding FDR is hugely inaccurate at best, America never would have made it out of the Great Depression, or become the world power we are, had it not been for his guiding hand...............

 

Bush the II.
He set the standards of stupidity, must be quite easy to elect a new president after that
As a non American I would say Woodrow Wilson, even if its of topic, but because of this
http://photos.state.gov/libraries/serbia/5/article-images/save-serbia-our-ally-poster.jpg

 

Bill from the options but really I'd sat it's a tie (for different reasons) between FDR and Eisenhower.

 

Proving only that history is written by the winners. FDR gave us the USSR

PS Lincoln was also one of the worst.

Those two are probably responsible for more American deaths than all the other presidents combined. Throw in Wilson and you have the trifecta

 

birth date of USSR = December 30, 1922

Republican Warren Harding was in the White Wash House - blame him, not FDR

 

The USSR was in existence and a threat to Europe and more to itself, from 1917-1941, without any assistance or help from America, or FDR. Roosevelt giving us the USSR is as silly a statement as I have ever read on the internet regarding World Affairs. America, in fact, sent troops to fight for the Czar in the Bolshevek Revolution of 1917, gaining America a long-term suspicious reputation from the Soviets.

I agree with your third point sir - but they all were "necessary" death's. The first, Lincoln's decision to maintain the American Federal Union through force, cost 600,000 dead, and was an absolute necessity. When he took office, one half of America existed, the other half had stepped out of the Federal Union illegally, since that was Lincoln's opinion, that is why he forced them back in militarily.

Franklin Roosevelt's simple decision to break Washington's third term precedent in 1940, was based solely on the world situation America faced with Nazi Germany, Italy and Japan. He didn't put us in World War II, but understood we would have to fight in it, but only moved as far as American public opinion would allow. And American public opinion allowed him to make that move on December 7th, 1941 after it totally changed with the Pearl Harbor attack from Japan, and Hitler's decision to declare war on us.

The Germany First policy of Roosevelt saved America and Europe; USSR involvement, which started with another surprise attack, this one by Hitler and Germany in 1941 on Russia. The three pronged hammer-blow the Nazi's launched at the Soviet Union almost, and should have, succeeded, except for a Russian "scorched earth policy in retreat"- poor German planning, not taking in consideration the Russian Winter and American Lend Lease supplies to put the Soviet Army on wheels until they could catch their breath, shift their industrial-war making industry into the vast internal spaces of the USSR, and turn and defeat Germany, not stopping until Harry S. Truman told them they would be at war in a week with America, if they didn't get their troops out of Greece and Turkey in 1945.

Stalingrad and Guadacanal both occur in 1941, similar military operations, which turn the tide of warfare against our enemies. Without Franklin Roosevelt-Harry Truman, and surprisingly Stalin and the use of his troops to cut the heart out of the German army, the United States doesn't survive past 1945. Hitler probably wins, controls the world, and turns to deal with America without allies.

America also doesn't survive past July 1-2-3 / 1863 at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, without the efforts of the Federal Union Army of the Potomac and Abraham Lincoln's staunch insistence that all territory, Virginia; Texas; Mississippi; Tennessee; North Carolina; South Carolina, etc. are and will remain permanently in the American Federal Union. It took force to do it, necessary force, and tremendous political courage and staying power by amazing, intelligent leaders, Lincoln, and Roosevelt to keep America as a country, together and in the position to become the world power it is today.

Sacrifice was demanded; sacrifice of the highest order was given, and the two political leaders - Lincoln and Roosevelt are both in the Top Three of American President's in history because of it. We didn't write a revisionist history, if anything, the American South; Germany; Russia and Japan did. One only has to visit the National Cemetery at Arlington, Va., or Normandy in France, to see what American sacrifice was needed, and accomplished on behalf of the world.

In addition, Truman's Marshal Plan to rebuild devastated Western Europe, and keep the Soviet's at bay with the policy of containment, which developed into the Cold War, starting with the 1948 Berlin Airlift; and MacArthur's democratic rebuilding of Japan into a solid Western-type democratic state from 1945 on, reflects the rightness of American political thinking represented by Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt, both late victims of the wars they were involved in................

 

I too pick Kennedy even though it is 52 years since he was murdered.

 

you obviously know a great deal more than do the right wingers on this forum whose posts are filled with hatred for the USA and for progressives but which lack truth

 

Reagan is the best???? Since when has any republican supported massive debt and 3xpansion of government. Reagan was a (*)(*)(*)(*)ty president with a nice smile

 

What "right wingers" hate the USA and show me some examples.

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Reagan requested less spending every year in office than the Congress authorized and Congress refused to pass all the spending rescissions he sent to them so why do you blame him for and want to compare the dollar amounts the Democrats along with Obama have added? If that is your measure the Obama is absolutely the WORST president in the history of the country.

 

What happened no rebuttal to the honest context of the data as I posted?