# First President to leave nation worse off? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 6, 2003, 9:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357 "2003-12-06T09:28:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/21 "2003-12-06T16:35:16Z")
Buchanan and Hoover were unable to find a way to ameliorate problems that were forced upon them. That seems to me to be different from LB Johnson and Bush, who took the US into problems based on exaggerations and half-truths. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/22 "2003-12-06T17:45:51Z")
Buchanan would be my choice. He had opportunities to act to prevent or ameliorate the crisis that would result in the Civil War and declined to act, for effectively political reasons. To give Hoover what credit he deserves, as a good laissez faire Republican of his time, he believed that strengthening the business structure of the country would result in reversing the Panic of '29 and lead to prosperity in days ahead, and acted decisively to do so – the Reconstruction Finance Administration was one of his creations, which was retained and used effectively by the New Deal. He was naive about the seriousness of the Great Depression and its _short-term_ impacts on the average citizen, believing that most people had sufficient resources to weather out the hard times. He was substantially to the left of Coolidge, though still rightist by anybody’s objective standard, and when elected was most famous for his humanitarian work, leading a U.S-supported international effort to combat famine in Russia (and other places as well, but primarily Russia) after WWI. ---
**Author:** ![schplebordnik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/91b2a8/32.png) [@schplebordnik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/schplebordnik)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/23 "2003-12-06T18:02:57Z")
Probably could say that Grant & Hayes left the country worse off, too. And how much better off was the country as a result of Kennedy’s administration? ---
**Author:** ![smilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/48db29/32.png) [@smilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smilla)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/24 "2003-12-06T18:23:26Z")
> [@](#): > > Hillary Clinton in Houston: > > “This administration is in danger of being the first in American history to leave our nation worse off than when they found it” It’s called hyperbole… ---
**Author:** ![dal\_timgar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e57/32.png) [@dal\_timgar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dal_timgar)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/25 "2003-12-06T18:24:23Z")
I think Reagan already did that. Check the national debt before and after. I think Bush could do much worse than Reagan, but in different ways. I’m still waiting for some politician to say accounting should be mandatory in highschool. What would that do for the economy in 10 years? Dal Timgar ---
**Author:** ![Governor\_Quinn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/d26b3c/32.png) [@Governor\_Quinn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Governor_Quinn)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/26 "2003-12-06T18:27:51Z")
Answering the question seriously: Possibly Adams or Jefferson, but it definately occured at or before Andrew Jackson. Of course, a serious answer will not please the partisans of this board… ---
**Author:** ![myles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/779978/32.png) [@myles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/myles)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/27 "2003-12-06T18:38:00Z")
“We cannot subscribe to one law for the weak, another law for the strong; one law for those opposing us, another for those allied with us. There can be only one law-or there shall be no peace.” President Eisenhower, one of America’s greatest opponents of gunboat diplomacy. His leadership was fundamentally important in the development of international law and the growing opposition to colonial oriented international relations. His opposition to the British and the French imperialistic warmongering in the Suez Canal Crisis had a pioneering impact on anti-imperialists everywhere. For these reasons alone, Eisenhower left the Presidential office worse off than when he entered. ---
**Author:** ![myles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/779978/32.png) [@myles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/myles)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/28 "2003-12-06T18:41:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by schplebordnik \* > \*\*Probably could say that Grant & Hayes left the country worse off, too. > > And how much better off was the country as a result of Kennedy’s administration? \*\* “One of these days, Alice…POW, right in the kisser” “You’re going to the moon, Alice” TO THE MOON ALICE!!! TO THE MOON!!! ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/29 "2003-12-06T18:58:02Z")
Without a definition of “worse off” this question can’t be answered. But if we are to use a subjective analysis, a strong case culd be made for Carter. Reagan’s campaign theme was to ask voters if they were “better off than they were 4 years ago”. That resonated enough with the electorate that he swept out the sitting president 489 electoral votes to 49, and bested Carter by 10 percentage points in the popular vote (51 to 41, with 3rd party candidates taking 8%). I’m guessing Hillary would mention job losses if she were pressed to clarify what she meant. She’ll have her chance in '08 to say this all over again, and be held more accountable to back it up. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/30 "2003-12-06T19:06:55Z")
In my own lifetime I have to say Carter. He took an already bad economy and made it worse. Unless you were an adult during his Presidency you probably cannot appreciate how bad it was. Thank God some of you don’t know what REAL inflation is and extremely high intrest rates are. Some of us joined the military because it was the only job there was. I remember when the local dairy Queen would advertise a part-time job and 600 adults would should up to apply because their unemployment benefits had run out. Carter didn’t start the bad economy of the late 70’s, but he made it worse. ---
**Author:** ![errata](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/839c29/32.png) [@errata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/errata)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/31 "2003-12-06T19:09:19Z")
Is there a link to this Hillary quote? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/32 "2003-12-06T21:48:26Z")
This is just politics. You can make that claim about ANY president - if you choose your definition of ‘worse off’ carefully. For instance: - Republicans would claim that Bill Clinton disgraced the office and left the presidency much weakened when he left. - Pretty much everyone agrees that Nixon did the same thing - Lots of presidents have left office leaving behind a bigger deficit than when they took office, and almost all of them left a bigger debt behind. - Carter left office with a bunch of Americans being held hostage in Iran, with ‘malaise’ in the ccountry, and with a much bigger deficit than when he took office. In addition, the Carter years saw a big expansion of Soviet adventurism, including the invasion of Afghanistan. And the list goes on. Every president achieves some things and fails at others. Just focus on the things he failed at, and any president can be made to look like a failure. In Bush’s case, the claim I keep hearing repeated is that after his first term there will be a net loss of jobs. Even if that’s true (and we don’t know yet, because we don’t know how many jobs will be created next year), the counter-argument would be that: A) the job losses are not his fault - they’re the fault of the double whammy of the dot-com bust followed by a massive attack that wiped out a trillion dollars; B) In the late 90’s the job market was overheated and was destined to come down a bit; C) Historically and compared to the rest of the world, unemployment is still at very low levels. ---
**Author:** ![ubergoober](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ee7513/32.png) [@ubergoober](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ubergoober)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/33 "2003-12-06T22:19:22Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Governor Quinn \* > \*\*Answering the question seriously: > > Possibly Adams or Jefferson, but it definately occured at or before Andrew Jackson. > > Of course, a serious answer will not please the partisans of this board… \*\* For what it’s worth, I’d say the Alien and Sedition Acts would put Adams as the first to screw up the country by his own acts. I’d be interested to hear arguments for other president, though. ---
**Author:** ![Finagle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b19c9b/32.png) [@Finagle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Finagle)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/34 "2003-12-06T23:15:29Z")
Well, you could always argue Lincoln. Half the country devastated, demoralized, and impoverished, 600,000 dead and another 400,000 injured or maimed, 6,000,000,000 dollars sunk when a billion dollars still mean something, and Reconstruction would take something like 30 years. Soley from the criterion of “worse off”, it sounds like a slam dunk to me. [http://www.civilwarhome.com/warcosts.htm](http://www.civilwarhome.com/warcosts.htm) ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/35 "2003-12-06T23:29:38Z")
I don’t know enough about Buchanan to venture an opinion, but among the ones mentioned, I’d agree with Adams, LBJ, and Nixon. I’d add Woodrow Wilson, who never saw a situation in another country that wasn’t worthy of sticking our noses into, while suppressing dissent at home against those who objected to his warmongering. Hoover and Carter I think of as victims of circumstance, Hoover of truly extraordinary circumstances. In another time he’d probably have done OK. The current occupant I think of as a kind of farcical repeat of LBJ, another warmongering, power-hungry Texan out to prove he’s got titanium balls, or something. He’ll leave us worse off, but he’s hardly the first, and certainly not the worst. Not that he isn’t trying; he’s just incapable of doing too much damage, given his limited intellectual capacity. ---
**Author:** ![\_possum\_stalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/b77776/32.png) [@\_possum\_stalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_possum_stalker)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/36 "2003-12-06T23:32:29Z")
I think Hillary is dropping Hoover from this common observation: > [@](#): > > Even if the country continues to add jobs at the rate it did during the month of October, by the end of President Bush’s term, the economy still will have lost about a million jobs, making Bush the first president since Herbert Hoover to be at the helm of a country that actually had fewer jobs at the end of a four-year term than at the beginning. (from [this](http://blogs.salon.com/0002255/2003/11/08.html) site) O r just maybe she feels the country is worse off because Bush is the first president to violate his oath to defend the Constitution by [imprisoning American citizens](http://www.chargepadilla.org/) without criminal charges, access to a lawyer, or any of that “due process” crap. But that would be crazy. ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2003, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/37 "2003-12-06T23:45:57Z")
Bush’s interesting use of this bogus “enemy combatant” category is certainly a long-term danger to the Republic, the more so since it goes almost completely unremarked. ---
**Author:** ![Ramanujan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/51bf81/32.png) [@Ramanujan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ramanujan)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/38 "2003-12-07T00:08:10Z")
this makes me think of something from the onion… in “Our Dumb Century”, a book (i don’t know if what’s in it exists elsewhere) containing the onion’s versions of the previous century’s headlines, they have one that reads: “Hoover’s ‘Are You Better Off Now Than You Were Four Years Ago?’ Campaign Fails to Gain Momentum” so i don’t think bush would be the first… ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/39 "2003-12-07T00:11:31Z")
Didn’t Lincoln suspend Habeas Corpus during the Civil War? Hmmm… [yes, he did](http://www.civil-liberties.com/pages/did_lincoln.htm). It’s not like what Bush has done is unprecedented, guys. One of our most honored and cherished Presidents did much the same thing. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2003, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357/40 "2003-12-07T00:18:07Z")
From that very cite: > [@](#): > > Taney, in Ex parte MERRYMAN, then ruled the suspension of habeas corpus unconstitutional because the writ could not be suspended without an Act of Congress. President Lincoln and the military ignored Justice Taney’s ruling. > > Finally, in 1866, after the war, the Supreme Court officially restored habeas corpus in Ex-parte Milligan, ruling that \*\*military trials in areas where the civil courts were capable of functioning were illegal. \*\* Bolding added. It is hardly an endorsement of Bush that he’s doing it again despite it having been _ruled_ unconstitutional, is it? Or that the debate topic is where he ranks among the _worst_ leaders we’ve had? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-president-to-leave-nation-worse-off/217357.md?page=3)