Posted on 08/29/2012 12:59:49 PM PDT by moonshot925
I think it was Calvin Coolidge.
He had a budget surplus every year and the national debt was reduced from $22.3 billion in 1923 to $16.9 billion in 1929.
He cut the top tax rate from 56% to 25%.
Is this a trick question?
It was Ronald Reagan.
Please define REAL Conservative.
Hoover, or perhaps Ike
I don’t know about that.
There was a massive spending increase under Reagan, both military and domestic.
The federal government grew in size.
The national debt tripled in size.
Reagan also gave amnesty to 3 million illegal aliens in 1986.
George Washington.
What was JFK's top rate tax reduction record?
I’ll take Reagan any day. Your Coolidge response is silly
>>It was Ronald Reagan.<<
If Ronald Reagan was running and later serving as POTUS now, he would be unmercifully attacked by FR.
NO ONE passes the “FR Conservative Test.” NO ONE.
1. I would say Reagan and Coolidge
2. ..then Hoover and Bush II
3. Nixon and Ike next
4. Ford and George HW Bush.
In Fact Ike wanted Govt healthcare
JFK reduced the top tax rate from 91% to 77%.
Reagan who saw Coolidge as a role model.
It has to be Reagan.
BTW, I never thought trying to install Jeffersonian Democracies in Muslim counties like Iraq and Afghanistan was “conservative”. More like radical as in radically misguided. Jeffersonian Democracy was based on Protestant Christianity .. last time I checked Iraqi and Afghans weren’t Christian. I am saying that Bush can’t be considered a conservative in the traditional sense.
That cold war and all I guess. ; )
From a domestic policy standpoint, Coolidge would be the last conservative President. Herbert Hoover's anti-Depression programs, such as the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, were precursors of FDR's New Deal. Eisenhower had conservative instincts, but decided against abolishing the New Deal and Fair Deal programs of his predecessors. Nixon, Ford, and the Bushes were at best pragmatists who did nothing to abolish the governmental expansions of their Democrat predecessors and expanded certain Federal social welfare programs.
Prior to Coolidge, Harding, McKinley, and Cleveland would qualify as Constitutional conservatives. Not so for Theodore Roosevelt or Wilson. Like Eisenhower, Taft had conservative instincts, but it was partially under his Administration we were saddled with the income tax, the Federal Reserve, and the elimination of legislatures choosing U.S. Senators.
In 1981 the national debt was $0.998 trillion
In 1989 the national debt was $2.857 trillion
It tripled under Reagan.
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm
William Howard Taft.
I’ll go with Coolidge with an honorable mention to RR.
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