Ryan Daniel Moran argues the best presidents do the least. He favors Reagan, Clinton, Coolidge, and Jackson for low taxes and limited government, while criticizing FDR, Bush, and Wilson for wars, the Patriot Act, and expanding federal power.
Questions this video answers
Franklin Delano Roosevelt; George W. Bush; Woodrow Wilson.
Ronald Reagan; Bill Clinton; Calvin Coolidge; Andrew Jackson.
1913 (speaker's claim).
The Federal Reserve (speaker's claim).
Chapters
Happy President's Day. Feels like a weird time to say that. Hope you're being as lazy on the couch as I am today. What makes a good president? What makes a bad president? How do we evaluate whether a president is good or bad? I find it really interesting that we tend to evaluate politicians and presidents on what they do, on what they do for us, on what new initiatives they start. But when a president takes office, they don't say, I solemnly swear to make the economy good or to keep everyone happy, or to not be controversial. It's to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, which is mostly made to rein in government, to restrict government, not to expand what we do or the president does, or not to expand what the government does on behalf of its people, but instead how it empowers people to do for themselves. You know, I'm really disappointed in one thing, in the direction of. Of the United States, and is this increasing demand for other people, namely a federal government to do things for us, whether it's health care, whether it's the economy, the belief that a central power can do much at all to benefit us, the belief that centralized power in the hands of a few people can make better decisions than you. So I would submit to you that a president is not good or bad based on what he or someday she does, but instead what the citizens do under their rule, under their time in office.
The economy is driven by people. It's driven by sentiment, it's driven by private exchange.
And the role of the federal government is to stay out of the way of that as much as possible so that you and I can make those decisions. The best presidents might be the ones that we know little about, the ones who kept us out of war, not the ones who entered it and won. The presidents who stayed out of the economy, rather than the ones who started new initiatives that helped a few people at the expense of others. Maybe those are the best presidents. The ones that you don't even know about and the ones that we debate are the ones who enforced new power and took away our freedom.
Something to think about while you sit on a couch like me this President's Day. Enjoy your day off.
Since you're still here. My opinion. I love to ask the question, who are your favorite presidents? And who are your least favorite presidents? Because it reveals a lot about a person's bias in the world and shows kind of, you know, what they view important in a person. My least favorite presidents are.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And the reason for that is because he got us into Second World War.
And he was involved even before Pearl Harbor. So.
I blame him for that. I also don't like how much he expanded government and tried to manipulate the Supreme Court. Other ones, George W. Bush. I don't like George W. Bush. And the reason I don't like George W. Bush is because he expand the Patriot Act. Ugh. The Patriot act was just horrible. Got us into endless wars, specifically in Iraq, and just spent like a drunken sailor. Oh, my goodness. He just spent so much money. But the worst president of all time, there's no comparison, is Woodrow Wilson. Woodrow Wilson, 1913, probably. Oh, just a terrible year in our history. He had bad economic policy. He started the Federal Reserve.
He got us into war. I mean, he was just an absolutely awful. He was a horrible, horrible president. Okay, those are our three worst. Oh, and the income tax under Woodrow Wilson. Oh, my goodness. We did not have an income tax until 1913. Did you know that? All right, and then best presidents, I'm gonna go with, man, it's hard to not have Reagan, Clinton in there. And I say them together because it's. They're an era. An era of free markets, low taxes, booming economy, peace through strength. Hard to not include Reagan and or Clinton in there. Other best.
I like Calvin Coolidge. Calvin Coolidge might be my favorite president because he was humble and quiet and.
Peaceful.
And this is, I'm nervous to say, one. One of my favorites. I need to do more research on one part of his presidency. But one of my more controversial favorites is Andrew Jackson. And Andrew Jackson I like because he paid off the debt. Not paid it down, paid it off. It's the only time we've been out of debt. And he also eliminated the central bank. So I really like. I like Andrew Jackson now. The trail of tears is where he gets a lot of, you know, hate, and maybe deservedly so. I will have to claim ignorance on that one specifically just because I don't know what other options there were at the time. I don't know what other options were.
Put forth in that situation. And I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what could have been done better or worse. If you know and would like to tell me in the comments, I would love to be educated on that topic. But based on the two things that I'm more familiar with on the economic side, I like a lot of what he did. He was a weird dude, but he accomplished a lot.
I don't have a cool way to exit this one. Just ask people what their favorite presidents are. Who's your favorite president? Tell them to subscribe. Yeah, tell me your favorite top three presidents and your least favorite in the comments and be respectful or get banned. Banhammer.
