The Economy and Democrats

 I was reading a piece about what Biden has to do, and I read this.

Joe Biden will address the country as the official nominee of the Democratic Party. If the voters decide on Nov. 3 to make him president, he will face a big job on a lot of fronts. One of them is the economy: He will be the third consecutive Democratic president, going back a full three decades, who has had to clean up a mess left for him by a Republican predecessor.
Yes, that’s three Republican economic failures in a row. When will the American people figure out that we have a pattern here?
Well, for starters, when Democrats get around to telling them. For my money, that is Mr. Biden and his party’s No. 1 job between now and Election Day: Make it clear that Democrats have been better stewards of the economy — for decades, and by far.
Many people don’t believe this. The perception that Republicans are better at handling money is hard-wired. In a new NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll, President Trump enjoyed a 10-point margin over Mr. Biden on the question of who would handle the economy better — even as 77 percent of respondents rated the economy today as “only fair” or “poor.”

I was surprised, not because it isn't true, but because it is. 

1. George WH Bush left a depression and a huge (at the time) deficit from 12 years of Reagan / Bush. Clinton cam in, cleaned it up and in 8 years left us a surplus for the first (and only time) in almost a century.
2. Then George W Bush used that surplus to give massive tax breaks. It might have worked, EXCEPT then 9/11 came, which hit the economy hard (remember when he told us all to go out and spend money). Then he chose to attack Iraq which ran up the deficit more. At the end of his 8 years, a huge recession hit as the housing bubble burst. Obama inherited a fucked up economy and built the longest economic expansion in history.
3. Trump rode the end of that expansion well. But, even before Covid, his tax cuts and carefree spending DOUBLED the national debt in three years. Now, with Covid we have a giant deficit and and economy in the shitter. Someone has to fix that and Trump will not.

But conventional wisdom still says Democrats are bad at the economy. I think because Democrats don't give giant tax breaks and spend freely. We believe in a more balanced economy. Just like Republicans say they do, but don't.