He is certainly responsible for making the graph of national debt vs. time undifferentiable...
*
There are a few fundamental problems with that graph. First of all, given the way it has been presented, it seems to equate $1 in 1938 to $1 in 2006 (and even to $1 in 2010, but we'll ignore that part of the graph). This may be a simple error in the way that the graph is labeled; however, I seriously doubt that. Simply put, inflation is a bitch. The $1 you had in 1938 would be worth $13.57 in 2006[
1]. That's more than a ten-fold devaluation of the dollar over that period of time. The second problem of the graph you presented is that it gives no context. By context, I'm referring to the relative strength of the economy over the same window of time. To illustrate this point, allow me to construct an analogy. Say that a person at time t=0 has an income of $30,000 per year and is $50,000 in debt, and that same person at time t=5 has an income of $190,000 per year and is $125,000 in debt. Your graph would imply that the person in question at time t=5 is in a worse-off financial situation than he or she was in at at time t=0, which is obviously not the case. Also, the graph seems to be trying to assign blame for debt to particular presidential administrations, and it's a bit more complicated than that.
From your same source:
This graph, on the other hand, shows the same set of data incorporated in your graph, but it also includes a plot of debt as a percentage of GDP vs. time. I think this graph helps put our current situation in perspective a bit better than the one you provided does. Not only that, but it can still be used to make whatever points you may have been trying to make (e.g. debt as a percentage of GDP has noticeably increased since our current president took office).
All of that aside...
I would give our current president a 3.5/10 (rounded up to 4/10), but first I'll define what criteria I'm using in my own personal "1-10 scale."
First of all, I'm not judging the president based on some Utopian, perfect (non-practical) figurehead. Rather, I'm looking at this from a historical context (i.e. I am rating him against past presidents). A lot of people who complain about the state of today's economy or the state of today's leading social issues don't understand where we're at in a historical context. Second of all, I'm not
necessarily using a 1=worst, 10=best scale. Although that is how my scale boils down, I believe mine is more specific in the sense I'll be saying 5 is neutral, below 5 is detrimental, and above 5 is positive. "Neutral," "detrimental," and "positive" are not economic- or sociocultural-specific.
As such, my 3.5/10 rating means that I believe our current president has had an overall negative impact on our nation. I also recognize it has been worse in the past, and our current situation isn't too much south of average
in general. There are some areas (e.g. foreign relations and a
pronounced influence of religion in government) which I consider to have markedly worsened under the current administration, and that is why I assigned a 3.5/10 rating rather than a 4.0/10 or 4.5/10 rating. Given the limitations of the poll (i.e. it is limited to positive, whole number representations), I voted for 4/10 rather than 3/10 because I don't feel that things today are
that much worse than average when looked at in a historical context.
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