David Leonhardt: Eisenhower Might Be the Most Underrated 20th Century President

EXCERPT:

LEONHARDT: "Yeah, I think I agree with you Dwight Eisenhower might be the most underrated 20th century American president. People think of him as this sort of doddering figure in the ’50s by the end, but actually he did these incredible investments in the country. And he was also a fiscal conservative, so he was cutting other forms of spending but he realized that highways, and research and development, and education, you can actually increase that spending while cutting other forms of spending. And whether you’re a small government conservative or a big government progressive, one thing I’d urge people to do is, don’t just focus on the size of government, focus on is it focused on the future or not. And we now have a government that is so much focused on the present and the past than the future. We have a government that is much, much less generous toward children than it is toward people our age and toward retirees, and that just seems shortsighted."