Calvin Coolidge was a man of few words. In fact, his nickname back then was Silent Cal. As he boarded the train heading back D.C. after being sworn in, someone asked if he was ready to be president of the United States. His reply? I believe I can swing it. And swing it, he did. Coolidge became obsessed with shrinking the size of the federal government. After he and his predecessor had slashed the budget from 18.5 billion to 6.4 billion, Coolidge cut it in half again to 3.3 billion. The first president to address the nation using a new medium called radio, Coolidge announced his plan for “the people of America to be able to work less for the government and more for themselves.”