I'm not sure what planet you were on but Clinton Balanced the budget for 4 straight years, erased the deficit, and ran a surplus in his last 2 years. The Debt clock in New York was turned off because the Debt was being paid down. The 2 trillion he added to the overall debt was done before the balanced budgets . Reagan/Bush on the other hand increased the Debt and Deficits almost 10 times more than when they first came into office...

As to this question If Ford would have won we might never have had to go through the Reagan years. I wouldn't know about Dole.. He never had much of a chance anyway.

When I think of what if questions about president, I always think of how different things would have been if Kennedy had not been assassinated and gone on for a second term.

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Courtesy of Swissman

A gun in the hands of a free man frightens and angers the autocrat, not because he fears the power of the gun, but, rather, the spirit of the man who holds it.

ANONYMOUS

The two year surplus did not make up for the first four year deficit. And if you paid attention, I was complimenting Clinton.

So you're admitting that he added to the debt but you're leading with he didn't...

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The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to permit the conquered Eastern peoples to have arms. History teaches that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by doing so.

-- Hitler, April 11 1942

Truth be told, Congress had a little more than a little to do with those good fiscal years.....

I'm a big Bill Clinton guy but, he had a lot of pressure put on him by none other than Newt himself to keep spending down.....


We need a lot more of that kind of mindset these days.....

Those first four years of deficits were the same deficits that ended up being paid off, so yeah, the surpluses did make up for it.

See above....

Not the Congress you are talking about. It was the Budget policies put in place during his first four years that eventually led to the balanced budget. Newt likes to take credit for it but he's lying. They stood against Clinton and refused to pass his budget, which in turn led to a Government Shut down, and Bill stood by and let them do it. Newt was run out of Congress by his own party for it too. Spending was down before Newt came into the picture because Clinton Cut Defense spending even more.

If you want to get technical it was the Policies of George H. W. Bush and Clinton that led to balanced budgets and surpluses, not newt and his crew. Both Bush and Clinton raised taxes and cut defense spending.

The only reason Clinton moderated and had surpluses in His last term was the Republican congress

Well to be honest BigDave I think this should have gone in the election topic area. Or the bizarre topic area......

Otherwise it is just talk & opinion and nothing to do with History as it didn't happen and to even consider it means doing a lot of research as I wasn't even involved that much with politics back then.

Except to say this is one messed up lying govt.

I don't mean to discredit you in any way but making beans with out chili is to me a bit

To other it might be different. But during the mid 70's I was busy trying to keep my self and family feed. As Nixon was a disaster and in the mid 90's I was on the road trying to escape society.

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"There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation... One is by sword... The other is by debt."

John Adams 1826

We can handle just about any debt load if the economy is rolling and jobs are plentiful. But the "can do" American worker's are not getting the jobs, because they are not here any more, and business is not creating any new ones.

I agree on Bob Dole, really a poor candidate to have put up against Bill Clinton, who had the good fortune to preside over a relatively strong economic upturn and lack of foreign affairs problems throughout his 8-year administration.

Of course, the Republican Congress and Newt Gingrich and the Special Prosecutor all combined to tie up the country over the Lewinsky affair and impeachment in the second term. But, the Clinton political machine destroyed all that went up against it in the end. Something the Republican's never understood about Clinton. They should have looked at the old Huey Long Louisiana political machine, which Clinton modeled his after. On the day he was impeached by the House of Representatives, Clinton enjoyed a 57% approval rating - with soccer mom's.

As for President Ford vs. Jimmy Carter? First, had Ford waited until AFTER the election to issue the Nixon pardon, letting the courts continue along with their obstruction of justice charges, and the Nixon legal team would have delayed that with no problem, he easily would have defeated Carter, an inexperienced Governor from Georgia, one of the two states which puts all of its political power in the hands, by Constitution, of the legislature, not the executive branch.

Governor of Georgia is not a good training ground for a Chief Executive, he holds no power there. The Mayor of NYC holds more responsibility and power.The other state putting all its political power in the hands of the legislature, not the executive branch, also making it a poor training ground for a Chief Executive - Texas.

No matter what the courts would have decided, Ford wasn't going to let Mr. Nixon go to jail as an ex-President, and despite the press outcry, and liberal venting over Watergate, the American people really wouldn't have wanted their ex-President sitting in a jail cell either.

When Vice President Agnew was indicted on income tax fraud early in the Watergate scandal investigation and forced to resign, President Nixon was faced with having to go before Congress and ask the Democratic Congress, with then stellar leaders, like Mike Mansfield, who they would vote for to replace the Veep. The Democratic leaders were all in unison that they wanted Gerald Ford nominated, because of his longstanding record as a Congressman from Michigan who the Dems could work with, the fact Ford really understood economics and how Congress and budgets worked, and a spotless reputation. Nixon obliged, and Ford received the nomination.

Nobody really expected a Nixon resignation. Truth be known, had Nixon appeared on tv and made an apologetic "Checkers" speech after the Watergate break-in, he easily would have weathered the media storm the Washington Post was creating by acknowledging knowledge of the coverup. The country would have wrote off Watergate in three days.

But Nixon had Halderman, Erlichman and Mitchell to contend with, and all had heavy involvement. Also, one of Nixon's closest friends in Washington, J.Edgar Hoover also died at the time - Hoover would have buried everything relating to Watergate for him, although the Washington Post's "Deep Throat" source was highly placed FBI Assistant Director of Investigations and Personnel, Cartha DeLoach. Firing those three, Nixon would have been in the clear. He chose to fight right up to the Supreme Court - lost - and ended up having to resign or be impeached.

Gerald Ford got portrayed as a bumbler and incompetent by the Nixon team coming in, and the media shortly afterward. The impression wasn't true. He was very intelligent, experienced with politics and working with budgets and Congress, had sat on the Warren Commission that investigated the Kennedy assassination (at Johnson's request, and Johnson made the remark about him playing too much football without a helmet - a nasty crack which wasn't true). One of the new President's first comments to the press and the American people was that he was a Ford, not a Lincoln. Didn't help his public image there, but it was an honest appraisal of his surprising rise to Chief Executive, he simply spoke his mind.

But to Ford's credit, he refused (SHOCKED - STUNNED - CAN'T BELIEVE THIS WAS TRUE BY TODAY'S STANDARDS), issuing a Federal government economic bailout to New York City, which was bankrupt. He left the most populous city in America to dig their own way out of debt, not worrying about carrying the city of state on an election run later. Took political courage to let New York fend for itself.

Further to his credit, Ford ended the Vietnam War in 1974, when Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese. Nixon had started his plan to end the war (from his 1968 campaign promises), by Vietnamization of the conflict, turning more and more of the fighting over to the South Vietnamese government troops as American troops came home. Those troops didn't have their heart in the war, never really did throughout, and North Vietnam reunited the country.

There was a political firestorm as civilians desperately tried to get into the American Embassy in Saigon in the final days, the rescue flights bringing hundreds of children out of Saigon, and the terrible crash of a DC-10, killing all the children aboard. We watched in horror on our tv's, as America lost a war for the first time, and we saw the resulting consequences for the Vietnamese people. But Ford was steadfast, and refused to let our military go back in and try to restart the conflict. He just announced it was time to leave, and let Vietnam sort out its own affairs. It was the right decision.

BTW, Nixon was Vice President when Eisenhower ended the Korean War through negotiation, but Ike left all the American POW's from that conflict unaccounted for. The "Manchurian Candidate" book and movie are based on true stories - and it was only recently we discovered our Korean POW's got sent to Manchuria and Siberia where they most died and their remains are still unaccounted for. Nixon understood Ike's mistake, learned that lesson, and got back as many Vietnam POW's as possible alive and as many as could be identified remains. kudos, the guy might have been paranoid, but he did some amazing things as President. Also, later, in his sheltered retirement, a young American President routinely sought his counsel while in office - Bill Clinton - as Nixon retired to NYC.

Ford also had the same problem with the GOP that Mitt Romney has, satisfying the Conservative wing of the party. Ronald Reagan made a strong Presidential run against him as the sitting President, and almost won the nomination. Reagan rolled over Carter four years later. But in 1976, Jimmy Carter's smile, and "why not the best" campaign slogan and his common folk ways, plus public resentment over Watergate, let to a close Democratic win. Carter, of course, was a disaster in office. A former Navy submarine captain, he tried to operate the White House like a ship, involving himself in every little mundane detail, because that's the way a nuclear submarine runs, everything through one man's decisions, the Captain's. Had Reagan not made that strong run, capturing the GOP's Conservative wing and admiration (Ford was more from the Rockefeller wing of the party), coupled with the Nixon pardon, he wins in 1976.

As for that being a bad thing for Israel? I disagree. Nixon was staunchly pro-Israel, so was Henry Kissinger, his Secretary of State, and one of our best ones ever. Gerald Ford was of the same school (although not as intelligent as a Nixon or Kissinger), a solid, know your own mind sort of man (actually, a lot like Eisenhower). It took a lot of political guts to watch Vietnam fall, even though public opinion about the war had turned against American involvement by that time.

America, and Israel probably would have been well served had Gerald Ford won the 1976 Presidential race. As it was, Ronald Reagan really wanted Gerald Ford as his Vice Presidential pick in the 1980 race against Jimmy Carter, who had to fend off his own assault for the nomination by Senator Ted Kennedy. America remembered Kennedy's Chappaqudick episode and the drowning death of a young staffer in his car, and to its credit, didn't vote out the moralist-Jimmy Carter for Kennedy, although the Massachusetts Senator got almost half the delegates to that convention. Kennedy's run at Carter aided Reagan's victory over Carter later. Carter also made the mistake of not getting out on the campaign trail early as a sitting President, he tried to give the impression he was "staying at home" running the store, particularly with the Iran Embassy hostage crisis. There were plenty of high level staffers to "mind the store" Carter should have been out campaigning if he wanted to defeat Reagan, who destroyed him in the public debates.

Either Carter or Ford would have been able to bring about the Israel-Egyptian Camp David accords, there wasn't much political or public difference in the view about Israel at the time and Ford and Kissinger were highly pro-Israel.

Overall? America probably missed a good opportunity in 1976, and voted in the wrong man with Jimmy Carter. Gerald Ford was solid, reliable and much more intelligent and politically astute than he was made out to be in the media, hugely liberal and flush with the Watergate presidential scalp at the time.

The Reagan-Ford "dream team" of 1980, came very close to a reality, with Ford finally turning it down because he would have had no power as VEEP. Most of America seemed to want the idea to succeed. Reagan went with George Bush, Senior as Vice President, starting that political family cycle, and "a thousand points of light" known as America, eventually got extinguished.........: mad