Prestigious? I'll give you well known...

I don't see how you can argue with the statement. You're own statement is right on - the president doesn't have much sway over the economy. There isn't a dial he can easily turn to crank things up or down. Bush additionally go handed really crummy cards with the 9/11 disaster.

I don't think there's that much any president can do to grow the economy. It's like a garden. He and Congress can plant some things, water some things, and fertilize, but the weather and seasons have much more effect on what is going to happen.

I don't think Bsh's policies have been necessarily disastrous for the recent economy. They just haven't been particularly stimulative, either. Sure, housing starts are up, because mortgage money is essentially free. But consumer spending is flagging, and the most recent reports are that business to business spending is tailing off. We're in the middle of a flat period.

The problem with the policies is the price tag and the combination of the tax cuts with increasing spending due to the various security issues. This is adding up to a whopping disaster in the 20 year time frame, and all of America is pretending not to hear the bill collector's phone call. Over the next twenty years, we're going to have to make increasingly hard financial choices, because more and more of our tax dollar is going to be going to interest. Add that fact to the increasing age of our workforce and diminishing number of tax payers in relation to the entitlement receivers, and it's a scary picture out there.