What president was the most conservative? Now that Dubya is so unpopular, many conservatives are quick to claim that Bush wasn’t really a conservative anyway. But honestly, who can they compare him to? Bush Sr., Reagan, and Ford all passed big tax hikes, as did Hoover. Ford surrendered Vietnam, both Reagan and traveled to Moscow and Beijing to shake hands with communist leaders, and Bush Sr. chickened out of taking down Saddam. Nixon created the EPA, the alternative minimum tax, and expanded welfare. Eisenhower raised taxes on gas, thought social conservatives were “stupid”, and supported the Equal Rights Amendment. Herbert Hoover, Teddy Rooseveldt, and Taft all supported regulation to crack down on monopolies. So my answer here is the famously taciturn Calvin Coolidge, whose laissez-faire policies set up the largest economic collapse in American history.