> last pre-GFC Bush II

> last pre-Covid Trump I

Sure, if you exclude the big increases, you can draw different conclusions.

GFC was not an exogenous shock, and even if it was, a) Bush was in office setting policy the prior 6 years and b) the specific response was not preordained (for ex: it is not part of the Constitution that rich people must pay lower tax rates than they did in 1982, that invariant is a policy choice).

Sure, but absent the GFC, Bush-era tax rates + spending choices pushed the deficit to a low % of GDP we’d kill for right now.

Do you think lower high-income marginal rates caused the GFC?