Presidents get more credit and more blame than they should regarding the economy.
Originally Posted by grean
Very true. This is partly a result of the widespread adoption of Keynesian thinking that the federal govt can successfully manage aggregate demand and "fine tune" the economy at will.
The reality is we can ameliorate the business cycle, but not cure it. The private sector is, and will remain, the primary contributor to aggregate demand.
That's not to say government policies don't have a significant impact on the economy. The federal govt has powerful tools to apply - fiscal policy, monetary policy, trade policy, regulation policies, FX policy, etc.
Generally though, I think it's fair to describe Trump's policies as pro-growth and Obama's as anti-growth. Under Obama, the economy had to overcome headwinds. Under Trump, it is enjoying tailwinds.
Both parties constantly try to attach every good thing that happens in the economy to their own wise and prudently implemented policies, while attributing every bad thing to the other side's policy blunders and stupidity. The truth is somewhere in between.
There is plenty of blame to go around for the 2008 housing bust. It is no more fair to blame it on Bush than it would be to have blamed it on Obama if it had erupted in 2009 instead of 2008.