Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman told ABC News that President Obama has made more lasting changes to the country while in office than President Bill Clinton.
“Bill Clinton is an incredibly gifted politician, but Clinton was not a consequential president. Obama, although clearly not the natural politician, is a consequential president.”
Krugman has previously been a harsh critic of Obama. In 2009, he was featured in a Newsweek cover story titled “Obama is Wrong: The Loyal Opposition of Paul Krugman,” which identified him as the leading liberal voice against the president.
“People who had this idea that Obama was going to bring a transformation of America, I thought were being naïve,” Krugman said.
But, by God, we got health reform, and a significant financial reform. We are getting the environmental action … it’s not everything you would have wanted, but it’s more than anyone else has done for decades.
Krugman also said that Obama’s achievements were more consequential than those of Republican President Ronald Reagan.
“In the end, Reagan did not leave the structure of America’s society particularly different,” Krugman said. “He did not in fact change the basic legacy of Lyndon Johnson and FDR.”
Krugman’s ranking of consequential presidents, he said, would be Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, followed by Obama and then Reagan. Well said, then.
Just a thought.