Looking back at American history, it can now be said we have had four path breaking Domestic Policy Presidents, all Democrats, who have transformed America in so many ways!
Leaving out foreign policy as a factor, and realizing that the prosperity and security of the American people internally is very important, there is no question anymore that our greatest Presidents in domestic affairs, in chronological terms are :
Woodrow Wilson (1913-1921)
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933-1945)
Lyndon B. Johnson (1963-1969)
Barack Obama (2009-?)
Wilson’s Presidency gave us the Federal Reserve banking system, the Federal Trade Commission, the Clayton Anti Trust Act, Agricultural subsidy laws, and the first national labor laws, under the terms of the New Freedom and the New Nationalism.
FDR’s New Deal gave us Social Security, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the National Labor Relations Act, Public Works Agencies, Unemployment Compensation, Aid to the Disabled and Handicapped, the Tennessee Valley Authority, Public Housing, Banking and Stock Market Regulation, and numerous other laws.
Johnson”s Great Society gave us the modern Civil Rights Acts, Medicare, the War on Poverty, Federal Aid to Education, Consumer Protection Laws, Environmental Protection laws, and numerous other initiatives.
Obama has given us the Affordable Care Act (“ObamaCare”), consumer protection laws, equal pay for women, immigration reform for children of immigrants, promotion of gay rights and equality, the saving of the auto industry, and numerous other reforms.
Most experts and rational people would put Wilson, FDR, and LBJ in the top ten of our Presidents, even with controversial foreign policy records.
Now, it would be fair to put Barack Obama in that elite group when scholars and experts reassess the Presidency at the end of the Obama Presidency!