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reaganlover:
We can argue till the cows come home (and there are 3.45 million in Wisconsin) about the merits of FDR, but an aggregate of surveys going back to 1948 rates FDR as the second best President in the history of our country. Only Abraham Lincoln is ranked higher. George W. Bush, incidentally, is ranked close to the bottom (34 out of 44).
You'll be happy to know that Ronald Reagan is ranked #17. almost as high as Barack Obama, so Bedtime for Bonzo didn't hurt him very much.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States
A good book to read is "Nothing to Fear", by Adam Cohen , which does an excellent job of analyzing Roosevelt's Presidency. Although it's certainly true that the war economy helped our country's economic growth, it's also true that the policies of FDR made a huge difference in the economy.
Hoover's austerity plan pretty well mimics the austerity plan favored by conservatives today. It was a disaster then, and it's still foolish today.
Surprisingly, FDR was actually a fiscal conservative. However, when he returned to his "fiscal responsible" persona in 1937, the results were disastrous:
http://www.voxeu.org/article/what-caused-recession-1937-38-new-lesson-today-s-policymakers