Was Dwight Eisenhower a conservative?

[AggregateDemand]

Nothing conservative about Ike. Creator of the interstate system, which was a loose interpretation of post roads and common defense clauses. Fearful of the military industrial complex he presided over during the war.

He was the first demand-side Keynesian in the White House, and like many presidents after him, he listened to the people who said productivity (supply) doesn't matter as long as spending grows. It took nearly 30 years for Congress to realize that paying perpetually higher prices for the same bundle of goods was leading us down the road to perdition. We still haven't fixed the policy problems from the post-war era.

[AggregateDemand]

In what way was Ike such a Keynesian?  He probably vetoed more spending than any other president.

He vetoed spending initiatives following the biggest spending glut in US history (at the time).

Ike was the guns to butter president. He converted parts of the military into peace-time agencies, like Interstate Highway System and NASA. He also coined the term military-industrial complex during a speech lamenting his inability to reduce military spending to Post-WWII-levels after the Korean War. Eisenhower also expanded New Deal programs and Social Security.

He was a moderate compared to the likes of LBJ, but by today's standards, he would be regarded as someone of the Keynesian persuasion. Goldwater certainly didn't think highly of his domestic agenda.

[AggregateDemand]

Lmao what? He was the first demand-side Keynesian? FDR was the definition of a Keynesian. Eisenhower would have never approved of what's going on today.

Lol at reactionaries.

Trying to be something and actually being something are two different things. FDR tried demand-side Keynesian policy, but since he was an old man attempting to implement a nascent branch of economic theory, it didn't work particularly well. WWII created the economic bureaucracy and the demand-stimulus (war debt) that ultimately converted the US to a peace-time Keynesian economy.

FDR was more of an anti-supply-side president, particularly his agricultural policies.

[AggregateDemand]

So let me get this straight:

The President who vetoed more spending bills of any president since Cleveland, stood as a vanguard against attempts by Democrats to increase the scope of New Deal programs, and had more years with budget surpluses than any president since Coolidge. . . . . . was a liberal Keynesian hack just because muh roads?

A necessary document my friends:

http://taxvox.taxpolicycenter.org/2012/12/17/how-eisenhower-and-congressional-democrats-balanced-a-budget/

Ike was more of a ficon than ANY of the Presidents that succeeded him and probably more than every president since at least Hoover.  This idea that he was a liberal or even a moderate just because he signed the Interstate into existence (and even then there is a very strong argument to be made that even that was motivated by conservative elements, given that big business would benefit massively from the internal improvements) and didn't call for an immediate end for the New Deal is a serious misreading of American History.

In a world without context, you would be king. In a world with context, the US was emerging from the biggest federal spending initiative in the history of our nation (%GDP). Keynesian economics is not perpetual spending. We already created the demand-side deficit spending necessary to bring the economy out of the Great Depression.