Townhall Finance
Which Presidents Are Right about Government?
by Daniel J. Mitchell 

When I was becaming interested in public policy, I thought Jimmy Carter was the epitome of a bad President. But as I began to learn economics, I realized that Richard Nixon and Lyndon Johnson also were terrible and belong in the Hall of Fame of bad Presidents. 

And the more I studied economics and public policy, I learned that Herbert Hoover and Franklin Roosevelt were two peas in a failed big-government pod and deserve membership in that Hall of Fame. 

Or I guess we should call it a Hall of Shame (you can click on the image to see my selections). 

Whatever we call it, I’m now at the point where I realize that Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt are the charter members. Why? Well, because they were the first Presidents to reflect the progressive ideology. 

More specifically, they shared the ideology of the progressive movement, which saw a powerful and activist central government as a force for good – a radical departure from the views of America’s Founding Fathers, who hoped that the Constitution would protect people by keeping government very small. 

Not surprisingly, Barack Obama is in that “progressive” tradition, even to the point of attacking the views of the Founding Fathers in a recent speech at Ohio State University. 

I commented on this issue in this Fox News segment. 

That short clip only scratches the surface. 

For more detail, here are some excerpts from a column by Andrew Napolitano. Like me, he isn’t impressed by the President’s statolatry... 

Read the rest of the article with links at Townhall Finance