Worst U.S. President Ever

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However, I don't believe Harding himself was tied directly to any of the scandals.

Usually U. S. Grant is considered one of the worst on the lists I've seen, due to his incompetence to appoint decent people to positions of power. My vote goes to Herbert Hoover, since he epically failed at reacting to the Great Depression. I am NOT blaming him for the Great Depression; however, I am claiming that he did shamefully little to try and pull the economy out of it.

Next I vote for John Quincy Adams, just because his only claim to fame is his middle name, although I suppose that's not entirely his fault; the opposing party had control of congress during his term, so he wasn't really able to do much of everything.

Andrew Jackson is a humiliating blotch on US history. He sent the economy to ruins when he abolished the federal bank and made paper money worthless, making it so "species" (coins of precious metal) were the only acceptable form of currancy. And, of course, I can't talk about Andrew Jackson without mentioning his crimes against the Cherokee Nation. Trail of Tears, anyone?

Ironically, I would NOT be too quick to add Richard Nixon to the list. If it weren't for Watergate, he'd go down as one of the greatest presidents ever, especially where foreign policy is concerned (then again, he had Henry Kissenger to thank for that). I mean, the Cold War began to thaw under his administration. However, Watergate happened and, therefore, he gets booted to the bottom rungs, and rightfully so I suppose. Kind of a pitty though.

Well, that's about it for my list.

Nixon would have been my favorite president if it wasn't for Watergate. True American though, the guy literally fought his work through with congress.

The New-Deal is just what is keeping our boats out of a depression now. Look at how much the economy stabilized after the New Deal. It is said that the New Deal contributed to the Economic Growth between the Mid-40's to the Mid-70's.

Also even by 1937 the economy picked up to levels right before WWI. Then a brief recession erupted. [Due to Republicans forcing people off the New Deal Programs.] However the economy stabilized greatly around the late 1930's & early 1940's right before WWII.

FDR is my political hero, lots of charisma, to the point the same american's thought of him as an uncle.

"It is said that Jesus was the 1st socialist"- Martin Gore of Depeche Mode

Orwell, you say you are a classical liberal. That is the same way historians define Ronald Reagan. Who in modern since along with Coolidge & Goldwater are Mainstream Conservatives.

I have to ask why Bush Sr. Believe it or not he was a good president & had a better brain behind him then his son.

I know the 2 most underestimated presidents that are usually average by historical preference are Jimmy Carter & Gerald Ford.

Well he was a racist. Promoted stricter punishments & harder work days on african-americans. Forcefully taken the indians off there own land. At a time america was making great civil rights progression brought us right back down. Well along with creating a free baking system & america and messing up the economy badly.

No, they were average presidents. Nothing special.

I will say that Jimmy Carter is, by far, the best EX-president the united states has ever had.

Absolutely FDR was the worst. He closed the banks so that the financial system wouldn’t collapse, he set up federal deposit insurance so that the average guy wouldn’t lose all his money when the banks collapsed, he fought hard for the unions and gave them labor laws so that management couldn’t underpay them or make them work overtime without just compensation, he saw to it that workers out of work got some compensation to tide them over times when they had no money to live, he started several government programs to employ young people when they could get no work in the WPA and the CCC, he got the Tennessee Valley Authority going to electrify that part of the USA and eventually powered much of the needed work to create the horror of the atomic bomb, and so on. In other words he did his best to save capitalism and he almost failed because he never spent enough government money to really pump it into action since capitalism never can seem to manage without huge government subsidies of one kind or another to keep it going. But one man finally performed the heroic task of stimulating the system sufficiently to put enough money in the pockets of the wage earners to put them into the middle class. That hero, for which all America should give praise was none other than Adolph Hitler who got the entire machinery of the work force going to produce the tanks and guns and bombers that won the war. Not only that, this magnificent German destroyed the whole manufacturing machinery of Europe so that the USA was untouched and thereby became the superpower it is because it had the only manufacturing machinery setup in the west to sustain capitalism. Of course, under the Republicans such as Reagan and Nixon the labor laws and the regulations that gave at least some honesty to the financial system was removed (with a helping hand from Clinton) and here we are back in the depression again and no Hitler to help us out.

Reagan as a classical liberal? I would contest such a classification. Much of his rhetoric could fall into such a philosophy, but if one bothers to actually examine his record it becomes painfully obvious that that was all talk and he never acted on it. His obsession with fighting the "evil Soviet Empire" overpowered whatever small-government scruples he had. He tried to use the strength of our economy as a weapon to batter down the Soviets by simply taking them in a spending battle and hoping that they'd go broke first. That is HUGELY irresponsible, and goes against classical liberal ideals. Nor did he really do much in the way of securing more personal liberty- he was a social conservative as well, and I hate social conservatism.

I'm more a fan of Goldwater, though since he never got into office it is debatable how much was just talk. He was an early proponent of gay rights, legalizing marijuana, withdrawing from the war in Vietnam (which he recognized as unwinnable as far back as the 1964 election) and drastically cutting back on federal taxes.

I believe we are about to see the worst president in action, actually. In a few years, I believe we will look back at the Bush years as the "Good ol' days."

Actually, I voted Bush Sr. as one of the greats.

I have no comment on Gerald Ford, because he didn't really do anything.

The New Deal is what extended the Great Depression, and *so* many of the things done under his presidency are just terrible. In any case, I don't think that the growth from the 40s to the 70s is based upon the New Deal at all, as high levels of growth existed in the economy before the Great Depression ever happened, in fact, the Industrial Revolution is often cited as a point where incredible growth began to happen. The only thing that the New Deal did, was pave the way for more wasteful government interventions to occur.


The 1937 economy was TERRIBLE though. Unemployment at the time was 14.3%, which isn't impressive, and terribly questionable for a recovery after about 7-8 years. There was a brief recession that occurred, and part of that was also a monetary contraction during that period of time, which would be outside of the hands of politicians.


And FDR is my political villain, the same as a few other people here.


People attribute everything to Jesus, and thrusting all sorts of ideas onto him is standard practice. His actual teachings do not quite reach socialism, and the only thing I see that would really bring up the question would be the Acts 2 church, which is post-Christ.

I agree with Orwell's criticism of Reagan's record. Reagan both enacted the largest increase in the federal deficit *and* under his rule the size of government increased, the credit Reagan deserves is lowering taxes significantly and engaging in diplomacy with Russia. Bill Clinton, however, is arguably a better classical liberal than Reagan was, after all, Clinton signed NAFTA, and decreased the size of government, even helping lower the federal deficit. Heck, Arthur Laffer describes Clinton as out-Reaganing Reagan.

I don't like Andrew Jackson, but I don't hate him as much as I used to. He was pretty evil, I'll give you that, but the major issue with him hurting the country is the 2nd national bank, and that didn't force the economy into a recession, but rather probably worsened an already coming recession. The days of wildcat banking were bad, but I think a lot of that was due to the regulations put in place on banks and those were mostly limits on growth of these banks, as even without a national bank, there were some banks that took on roles that helped stabilize the money supply. In any case, I think about 98% of economic historians admit that the days of wildcat banking didn't hurt the economy, even John Kenneth Galbraith admitted to the fact that significant growth was allowed under this system.

And FDR is my political villain, the same as a few other people here.


Let's look at it this way. If nothing was done during the Great Depression the situation would have been even worse. The Great Depression was @ its worst in late 1932 and early 1933. Having the bank holiday gave the banks time to rebuild at least some cash. It also gave Roosevelt time to pump money into banks that needed it.

There is nothing wrong with Redistribution of wealth. In fact it is the morally correct thing to do to help people out who need and deserve it. Great Britain is a very socialist country in that since and the economy over there is very stable. You don't here of too many Brit's living in the streets.

You give people enough money to live and they will give back 5 times more to this country & the economy as a whole. Its like if you give a guy a welfare check the 1st thing the guy will do is get groceries. Buying $50- $100 of groceries gives the average worker at a grocery store a day of work. 1/3 of a day for Management Positions. Not even talking about the money pouring into the food companies.

Backing up the banks was a great idea. Don't matter how bad our economy is most people will still have money in the banks. Making it where the economy will not worsen to the Great Depression extent. The Depression went on 3 1/2 years before FDR become president. In that since that was 3.5 years of a Bear Market. We've only been in a Bear Market for 1 Year and look how bad it is. So the fact that it has taken 7 years to recover was about norm. Economists are already talking about at least 5 years to recover after the Bear Market hits its low.

About the Roosevelt's in general. You can trust those people. Why do you think that many American Citizens during the 30's reelected him. I don't see a lot of Presidents backing there words that came out during the campaign. Giving weekly fireside chats and talking to Americans like he was a family member instead of a politician.