How Did Bill Clinton Manage To Spend Less In 8 Years Than Every President Has Spent Since Carter

Who was the most incompetent U.S. president between Carter, Reagan, Bush 41, Bush 43, Obama, and Trump?

This is one of those more complicated than it sounds questions. Any answer shorter than a fat book is going to be diluted by generalization—but here’s my take:—— Incompetent ——It’s early in the Trump presidency, but unless he changes radically, he’s well on the way to being the most awful, disastrous president in U.S. history. Physically, he is 70 years old, but he constantly acts like an angry toddler—making him both the oldest and youngest president.Bush 43 got thousands of young Americans killed or maimed in a senseless second-front war, and was the first U.S. president to authorize torture and hire mercenaries. Also, he actively helped steer us into a recession. Not good.Reagan cut taxes and increased spending, which tripled the national debt. Amazingly, some on the right still promote those same loony economic theories. Then there’s the Iran-Contra scandal, in which his administration sold weapons to Iran to raise money to fund a Nicaragua terrorist group. When he left office, Republicans launched a surprisingly successful campaign to make him a political saint—overstating his achievements and ignoring his failures. This determination to puff up Reagan may be in part because, at that time, they were still trying to live down Nixon.—— So-so —Carter had his heart in the right place, and the Bushes and Trump make him look a bit better—but his term at best was unexceptional. On a high note, he may have been the first president to really understand that we need a national energy policy.Bush 41 is kind of the Republican Carter. He got grief for raising taxes after he said he wouldn’t—but Reagan’s economic mess forced him to do it, and it was actually one of the braver and more sensible things he did.—— Most competent ——Clinton balanced the budget—the first president to do so since Johnson. He put more police on the streets and cut government spending. He probably had the best grasp of economics of any modern president. No president is perfect—he helped repeal Glass-Steagall, which created a regulatory vacuum that contributed to the Bush Recession.Obama pushed all the right economic buttons to get America out of the Recession. We’re still coasting on job growth caused directly by his policies. Like all presidents, he could have done more, but he left the country better than he found it, and has left us wistful for the days when we had a grownup in the White House..[Light edit—typo, and minor enhancements]