President Warren G. Harding on This Day in History

Video Presentation about the Crash of 1921

This Day In History: President Warren Harding died on this day in 1923. Many call him the worst president, but he may be one of the best. In 1921, under President Harding, unemployment hit 11.7 percent. Harding did nothing to get the economy stimulated. Despite objections, he reduced government spending. He simply let the market revive on its own and as a result the 11.7 percent unemployment rate in 1921 fell to 6.7 percent in 1922, and then to 2.4 percent in 1923.

"For the first 150 years of this country's existence, the federal government felt no great need to 'do something' when the economy turned down. Over that long span of time, the economic downturns were neither as deep nor as long lasting as they have been since the federal government decided that it had to 'do something' in the wake of the stock market crash of 1929, which set a new precedent...history shows that the economy rebounded out of a worse unemployment situation in just two years under Harding, who simply let the market revive on its own, as it had done before, time and time again for more than a century."~Thomas Sowell

"With tax rates cut for all groups, Americans invented or expanded such businesses as air conditioning, talking movies, radios, refrigerators, telephones, and air travel. The Roaring ‘20s launched with Harding’s assumption that greater freedom and less government would increase prosperity for all groups. The 1920s would also become the last decade in US history to see annual budget surpluses every year. Almost one-third of the federal debt disappeared under Harding and Coolidge."~Burton Folsom

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