# Between 1913 and 1993, what did Republican presidents achieve? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 14, 2010, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/between-1913-and-1993-what-did-republican-presidents-achieve/528956 "2010-02-14T15:57:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/between-1913-and-1993-what-did-republican-presidents-achieve/528956/21 "2010-02-14T21:31:49Z")
I know it is supposed to be non-partisan, but the only accomplishments the republicans did are ones that they would never do in 2010 and that are now associated with the democratic party (infrastructure, a non-militant foreign policy, environmentalism and sustainability, treating the weak with dignity). The point is, the only ones I can think of are ones that they’d be opposed to and that wouldn’t be associated with the current GOP. Nixon - EPA, talked to his enemies in China, oversaw the end of Vietnam (not sure how much was Nixon vs Ford). Eisenhower - tried to stop corruption in government by speaking out against the military-industrial complex, oversaw the interstate system, ended the Korean war Reagan - signed the UN convention against torture, pursued anti-nuclear weapon treaties. GHWB - Americans w/disabilities act. Sadly I can’t see any republicans supporting any of that now. The religious right took over in the 70s and it has been downhill since. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/between-1913-and-1993-what-did-republican-presidents-achieve/528956/22 "2010-02-14T21:40:35Z")
> [@boytyperanma](#): > > Not really a fair question in my opinion. Conservatives serve don’t help our society by creating things. They generally do so by serving as the voice of reason and preventing bad idea’s from moving forward. A more accurate measure of Republican accomplishments would be things they stopped from going forward. It is rather difficult to make a meaningful list of those things. As a liberal my impression is conservatives do not speak as the voice of reason. They have been so taken over by ideological purists, end of the world religious fundamentalists, sociopathic habitual liars and right wing authoritarians that they are the antithesis of the voice of reason. Bill Maher once said we don’t have a right and a left party. We have a center right party and a crazy party. I’d agree with that. Even people like Eisenhower and Goldwater spoke out against the kinds of conservatives who are now mainstream. Ron Reagan’s son said his dad would think Palin was a moron who shouldn’t hold public office. And Reagan used to be an extremist. Now his son says even he’d be afraid of the extremists in the GOP. Corporate oligarchy, unnecessary wars, a fear/aggression based foreign policy, ending needed social programs, decrying infrastructure as ‘waste’, supply side economics and deregulation as a universal salve to everything, believing the folksy charm of Sarah Palin and Beck over the research of professors at MIT, anti-science attitudes, claiming you can have tax cuts and a balanced budget at the same time (ie failing 2nd grade math). Not the voice of reason. The exact opposite maybe. Of course, this is the GOP of today I’m talking about. Not the GOP of 1960. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/between-1913-and-1993-what-did-republican-presidents-achieve/528956/23 "2010-02-14T21:49:42Z")
The military draft ended in the Nixon administration. The Carter administration revived registering for the draft but no one has been drafted in almost 40 years. ---
**Author:** ![boytyperanma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4491bb/32.png) [@boytyperanma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boytyperanma)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 9:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/between-1913-and-1993-what-did-republican-presidents-achieve/528956/24 "2010-02-14T21:53:35Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Bill Maher once said we don’t have a right and a left party. We have a center right party and a crazy party. I’d agree with that. I agree with that completely. When looking at the time frame given I feel it does not apply. My point was the OP’s question is biased. Comparing liberal accomplishments to conservative ones is a apples to oranges comparison. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/between-1913-and-1993-what-did-republican-presidents-achieve/528956/25 "2010-02-14T22:46:15Z")
Richard Nixon signed the law that a Democratic Congress passed lowering the voting age to 18 in federal, state and local elections. The Supreme Court ruled they could only do it for federal elections and the 26th amendment was subsequently passed to fix this (U.S. Presidents do not sign or veto Constitutional amendments). ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2010, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/between-1913-and-1993-what-did-republican-presidents-achieve/528956/26 "2010-02-14T23:29:09Z")
And the usual crowd comes out to insist that they’re raving maniancs are really the sane ones. How od that the supposed enlightened demigods of reason are so desperate they cannot let even a simple thread like this one come by without beating their miniscule chests. You children never could get over Bush, did you. Heh. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/between-1913-and-1993-what-did-republican-presidents-achieve/528956/27 "2010-02-15T00:10:52Z")
Treated ourselves to a couple of Valentine’s Day cocktails, have we? ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/between-1913-and-1993-what-did-republican-presidents-achieve/528956/28 "2010-02-15T01:16:25Z")
Nixon is rightly slagged for corruption, but it’s difficult to overstate the importance of achieving detente with China. Opening China completely changed the balance of power between the USA and Soviet Union; until that point you would have been perfectly justified in being terrified that the USA would be eventually, inevitably outgunned by a tenuous Soviet-Chinese alliance. And Nixon did this while simultaneously beginning SALT, thereby thawing relations with the Soviets just as he was removing the USA’s most significant long term strategic weakness. Diplomatically, the Nixon administration’s approach to detente was just brilliant in every respect. We will never know for sure but I think there’s quite a good chance Richard Nixon prevented nuclear war and the destruction of Western civilization. ---
**Author:** ![R.P.McMurphy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7993a0/32.png) [@R.P.McMurphy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/R.P.McMurphy)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/between-1913-and-1993-what-did-republican-presidents-achieve/528956/29 "2010-02-15T01:36:01Z")
It’s been stated but the establishment of interstate highways under Eisenhower was huge. It totally changed travel and distribution of goods in America. In fact, it changed the world because other developed (and far less developed) countries adopted the concept. The other credit that Eisenhower gets, despite his flaws, was that he made NASA a civilian operation and refused to let it come under the auspices of the military. That resulted in a huge impact in technological development in the USA. If the military had retained control we might still be in a cold war with the Soviet Union. Eisenhower made the right choice, the Soviet Union made the wrong one, to their peril. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/between-1913-and-1993-what-did-republican-presidents-achieve/528956/30 "2010-02-15T03:02:15Z")
> [@The\_Great\_Philosopher](#): > > Between 1913 and 1993, there were 8 Republican presidents and 6 Democratic ones. As far as I’m aware these are some of the major ‘achievements’ attributable to the Democratic presidents in that time: > > - Creation of the Federal Reserve (1913, Woodrow Wilson) > - The first progressive income tax (1913, Woodrow Wilson) > - Social Security Acts (1932 and 1964, FDR and LBJ) > - Participation and eventual victory in WW1 (1917-1918, Woodrow Wilson) > - Participation and eventual victory in WW2 (1941-1945, FDR/Truman) > - Founding of the UN and NATO (1940s, Truman) > - Medicare (1965, LBJ) > - Medicaid (1965, LBJ) > - Civil Rights Act (1964, LBJ) > > But I’m not aware of what the major achievements of the Republicans are. A very strong argument can be made that, in addition to the items listed already, we can add this: only one of the items on the list - the Civil Rights Act - has had a net positive affect on American society, and the Republicans voted for it more than the Democrats did. The Republicans did not inflict any of the rest of those things on us. ---
**Author:** ![Icarus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/icarus/32/72_2.png) [@Icarus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Icarus)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/between-1913-and-1993-what-did-republican-presidents-achieve/528956/31 "2010-02-15T03:16:12Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > A very strong argument can be made that, in addition to the items listed already, we can add this: only one of the items on the list - the Civil Rights Act - has had a net positive affect on American society, and the Republicans voted for it more than the Democrats did. The Republicans did not inflict any of the rest of those things on us. If I’m reading you correctly, you are saying that victories in WWI & WWII did not have a positive affect on American society? Really? REALLY? ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/between-1913-and-1993-what-did-republican-presidents-achieve/528956/32 "2010-02-15T03:39:56Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > A very strong argument can be made that, in addition to the items listed already, we can add this: only one of the items on the list - the Civil Rights Act - has had a net positive affect on American society You can make the argument, but people have been making the argument for against those programs for up to 96 years and the public has not only consistently failed to end them, but in pretty much all cases voted to strengthen or enlarge them over time. Obviously that doesn’t hold for WWI and WWII, but I feel fairly confident that the public has pretty consistantly seen those as having a net positive effect. So your very strong arguements may be very strong, but they’re apparently not strong enough to convince a majority of the voting public for long enough to change anything, despite almost a century of trying. > [@](#): > > and the Republicans voted for it more than the Democrats did. More Dems voted for the '64 Civil Rights act then Republicans did in both houses. But in anycase, we’re discussing the actions of Presidents, and a Dem President introduced the bill and another one signed it. Agree that Nixion probably has the best legacy of the Postwar Republicans as far as accomplishments go, albeit one that got eclipsed in the public mind by Watergate and his other assorted sleeze. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/between-1913-and-1993-what-did-republican-presidents-achieve/528956/33 "2010-02-15T04:08:07Z")
Nixon also championed “revenue sharing” – the idea of federal grants to cities and states that they could spend with fewer restrictions than traditional appropriations. This sounds like a very technical thing today, but in the early 70’s it was considered a very progressive idea and was pretty controversial. ---
**Author:** ![EdwardLost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/bbe5ce/32.png) [@EdwardLost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EdwardLost)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 4:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/between-1913-and-1993-what-did-republican-presidents-achieve/528956/34 "2010-02-15T04:26:07Z")
0ur star wars defense shield ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/between-1913-and-1993-what-did-republican-presidents-achieve/528956/35 "2010-02-15T05:58:24Z")
> [@Icarus](#): > > If I’m reading you correctly, you are saying that victories in WWI & WWII did not have a positive affect on American society? > > Really? > > REALLY? My bad. I was focused on things like Social Security and Medicare. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/between-1913-and-1993-what-did-republican-presidents-achieve/528956/36 "2010-02-15T06:06:06Z")
> [@Simplicio](#): > > More Dems voted for the '64 Civil Rights act then Republicans did in both houses. But in anycase, we’re discussing the actions of Presidents, and a Dem President introduced the bill and another one signed it. Just to set the record straight. > [@](#): > > Vote totals > > Totals are in “Yea-Nay” format: > > ``` > * The original House version: 290-130 (69%-31%) > * Cloture in the Senate: 71-29 (71%-29%) > * The Senate version: 73-27 (73%-27%) > * The Senate version, as voted on by the House: 289-126 (70%-30%) > > ``` > > [edit] By party > > The original House version:[8] > > ``` > * Democratic Party: 152-96 (61%-39%) > * Republican Party: 138-34 (80%-20%) > > ``` > > Cloture in the Senate:[9] > > ``` > * Democratic Party: 44-23 (66%-34%) > * Republican Party: 27-6 (82%-18%) > > ``` > > The Senate version:[8] > > ``` > * Democratic Party: 46-21 (69%-31%) > * Republican Party: 27-6 (82%-18%) > > ``` > > The Senate version, voted on by the House:[8] > > ``` > * Democratic Party: 153-91 (63%-37%) > * Republican Party: 136-35 (80%-20%) > > ``` Yeah, LBJ signed it. But don’t forget the comment he made about it. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/between-1913-and-1993-what-did-republican-presidents-achieve/528956/37 "2010-02-15T16:45:01Z")
See the following Wikipedia articles: “Dwight D. Eisenhower” “Richard Nixon” “Ronald Reagan” “George HW Bush” ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/between-1913-and-1993-what-did-republican-presidents-achieve/528956/38 "2010-02-15T17:30:39Z")
> [@Clothahump](#): > > Just to set the record straight. > > Yeah, LBJ signed it. But don’t forget the comment he made about it. I believe it was: “We [the Democrats] have just lost the South for a generation.” Or maybe he said that about the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Either way, he was right. But that generation now is past. ---
**Author:** ![R.P.McMurphy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7993a0/32.png) [@R.P.McMurphy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/R.P.McMurphy)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/between-1913-and-1993-what-did-republican-presidents-achieve/528956/39 "2010-02-15T19:51:48Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I believe it was: “We [the Democrats] have just lost the South for a generation.” Or maybe he said that about the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Either way, he was right. But that generation now is past. He underestimated. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [February 15, 2010, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/between-1913-and-1993-what-did-republican-presidents-achieve/528956/40 "2010-02-15T21:19:29Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > I believe it was: “We [the Democrats] have just lost the South for a generation.” Or maybe he said that about the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Either way, he was right. But that generation now is past. Actually, I was thinking of this: “I’ll have them niggers voting Democratic for the next two hundred years.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/between-1913-and-1993-what-did-republican-presidents-achieve/528956.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/between-1913-and-1993-what-did-republican-presidents-achieve/528956.md?page=3)