Matt Yglesias has a post over at TPMCafe in which he takes issue with, among other things, Harry Reid’s recent claim that President Bush is “the worst president this country has ever had.” Matt thinks that Bush is really bad, but perhaps not really in the running for worst ever.
Matt runs through the list of blunders and disasters, finding, not surprisingly, the Iraq War to be the preeminent screw-up.
But one thing surprised me when reading Matt’s catalogue of errors and his arguments about whether they get you to ‘worst ever’ status: Matt doesn’t mention fiscal policy.
Matt’s post isn’t meant to be exhaustive on the subject. So I’m not picking on him. But I’m curious how much this factors in people’s minds.
To me, the wreck the president has made of the country’s finances is at least arguably the biggest disaster of his administration. I think I’d still say Iraq comes out ahead because of the toll in lives and because of the degree to which it has set loose forces beyond our control. Still, though, the president’s reckless and disastrous fiscal policy almost alone would put him into the grand anti-Pantheon of presidential failures.
We’ll be living with the consequences for decades.
