Eisenhower
Essay Preview: Eisenhower
Report this essay
After President Roosevelt, have any of the presidents been effective in their time of presidency? Many people believe that, since the time of Roosevelt’s presidency, there have been no presidents who have had any sort of effect on the country as a whole. The most effective president since 1948 was President Eisenhower, because he sponsored and signed the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956; he balanced the budget; and he ended the Korean War.
Some people believe that Eisenhower was ineffective during his presidency. Their main reason for believing this is the fact that Eisenhower chose not to publicly criticize Joseph McCarthy. By not publicly confronting McCarthy, Eisenhower gave him more time in a powerful position. Eisenhower chose to denounce McCarthy in his own way:
Eisenhower privately despised McCarthy, and he worked behind the scenes with congressional leaders to erode McCarthys influence. Eisenhower’s indirect tactics eventually worked, but they also prolonged the senator’s power, since many people concluded that even the president was unwilling to confront McCarthy. (Ike’s)
Eisenhower believed that a public confrontation with McCarthy would demean the presidency. He did not wish to go public with his dislike of McCarthy; because Eisenhower believed that it would give McCarthy the publicity which needed. The decision to not publicly denounce Joseph McCarthy ended up being the right choice in the end.
Many people today speak of using the highway to get to where ever they need to go, but they fail to realize that it is Eisenhower who brought this piece of legislation to life. It is thanks to Eisenhower that we have a highway system which today stretches across the entire country, because: “He sponsored and signed the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956.”(Ike’s) It took him much effort to get this legislation passed, but it turned out that it became one of his favorite pieces of legislation.
Since the creation of the United States of America, the country has been in immense sums of debt. President Eisenhower was able to balance the budget throughout his term as President. Even with opposition, Eisenhower refused to cut taxes or increase the defense budget, which made more money available to work on solving our country’s debt problem (Ike’s). Eisenhower’s money policy also had other positive