Correlating economic growth with presidential policy has always been tough. First, a president enters office with his predecessor's budget in place. It takes time for the president to propose and have ratified laws to effect the economy and to propose a budget for the following fiscal year. Then when laws do go into effect, it can take months for those laws to effect the economy, and severall more months for the economic data to reflect the changes. The government plays an important role in the economy but it is not necessarily a predominant role. As a market based economy, much of our economic activity occurs in the private sector. There are times when presidential policies can be very determinative of economic activity such as lowering taxes to spur the economy in times of recession.
The deregulation movement of the Reagan through the Clinton years showed not only the economic growth that could be gained from the curbing of excessive regulation, but that twenty years of deregulation can lead to too little regulation which is costly as well. Every economic boom has led to overinvestment in inventories and capacity. This last boom was no exception. I do not blame Clinton for not preventing such overinvestment, it is not the president's role, and is a function of the markets.
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