So now that I opened the "Proverbial Pandora's Box".... I will post a list of my top five picks of the 17 Presidents that we had in the 20th Century, based upon their overall economic/social/foreign policy impacts with a brief rationale:
Clipped
Nova - IMO FDR is the greatest US president & possibly one of the best ever. He didn't just rebuild the economy, he created a new economic system & had one of the highest & most equitable growth phases ever. He changed the way government was supposed to be, proved that it had a duty to protect people.
Glass Steagall, Securities & Exchange commission, Social Security, Deposit insurance, New Deal massive Infrastructure & conservation programs (like Tennessee Valley authority) which build long-term assets & created huge jobs & ofcourse radical programs like Minimum Wage which would destroy the so-called free market of wages. He showed that you can't expect the market to auto-correct itself & have to stimulate it (which every country did). His GDP growth numbers & Unemployment numbers is unmatched & showed consistent improvement. And then you have foreign policy successes. Not just high growth & huge job numbers, but the tax increases on top earners reduced income inequality sharply & created a more equitable distribution of wealth.
LBJ was a legislative genius who is credit for Medicare & Medicaid, The Civil Rights act & many ground-breaking initiatives. The war on poverty too with food stamps & many other ground-breaking initiatives. IMO domestic policy wise LBJ was one of the most successful President's even (perhaps after FDR). Just by the sheer volume of domestic policy success, he is a Top 3/5 President ever. But Vietnam drags him down. He would have won another landslide election & would be remembered as the best President since FDR if not for Vietnam !
Poll
