Add to ORKGAccounts of the economic policy in the George W. Bush administration usually center on the tax cuts in his first year in office and the economic collapse in his last year, a result of his failure to effectively regulate housing finance. While these policies are important in the context of Bush's presidency, most discussions miss the underlying dynamics of the economy in the Bush administration. The key here is a backdrop of "secular stagnation" that had its basis in the large U.S. trade deficit. The trade deficit was an enormous drain on demand, which could only be filled by large budget deficits or asset bubbles. This trade deficit was in turn the result of a severely over-valued dollar, which can be dated to the Clinton Administration's d...