President Esenhower and KennedyEconomy

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Who is the greatest of the forty-five American presidents to date? This age-old question has no simple answers, and this is so for various reasons. Chief amongst them is the fact that there are no criteria, based on which the performance of presidents can be analyzed conclusively. However, scholars and commentators on this subject seem to agree that the economic performance during a president’s term is a valid scale for appraisal. It is in light of this that many former American administrations focused on economic growth as the basis for development. Perhaps the most notable being that of President Eisenhower and his successor, President Kennedy both who served for an aggregate ten-year period. In a chronological fashion from 1953-1963, this paper highlights various instances in which both of the presidents mentioned above and other officials in their administrations exhibited a desire for unprecedented economic growth, often through the state of the nation address and similar speeches. It also highlights academic literature, such as James Hillyer’s article, The Fiscal Revolution in America: A Reinterpretation, published in the Journal of Policy History, which interrogates the various responses to economic challenges by the presidents mentioned above (Hillyer). The paper further analyses the different strategies employed by both presidents and their respective effectiveness; focusing on reports of inertia on the part of President Eisenhower and the accolades to President Kennedy for rebuilding the economy after the recession.

Also, the roles of other senior officials in an administration will be highlighted, with a particular interest in the then Vice President Richard Nixon and President Eisenhower’s economic policies. Nixon’s zeal and desire for the advancement of Eisenhower’s agenda are apparent from several of his speeches, particularly at the 1958 Annual Dinner of the Bureau of Advertising in New York. With all the measures discussed above and the available criterion on which presidential performance may be gauged, it is accurate to aver that the state of the economy as left by president Eisenhower needed the diligence of president Kennedy to salvage it.

Works Cited
Hillyer, James. “The fiscal revolution in America: a reinterpretation.” Journal of Policy History 30.3 (2018): 490-521.