Instant Economic Impact Lad

I was talking to this Republican I know earlier today about the economy. And I was, you know, speculating about when exactly it would stop being the Clinton recession and Bush would actually take ownership over our economic mess.
And this Republican feller says: War time! etc etc, and all that. And then he says: Well you know, the President really has very limited impact on the economy!
And here are my two responses to that point, several hours later. Just in case you run into the same argument in your travels/travails:
(1) OK, so if the President can’t really impact the economy much, can he at least stop giving all our money away. I mean, if it’s not really going to change things one way or the other, he might as well not bankrupt us. So much.
(2) I know this is going a long ways back, but it seems like, energy crisis and all, President Carter was held pretty responsible for stagflation back in the ’70s. Didn’t hear much about the the President’s limited impact on the economy when Reagan was waxing poetic about the old misery index.
I guess Carter was just an unusually powerful man. A mutant, perhaps. Instant Economic Impact Lad. Whereas W’s brilliant economic plan is clearly going to finally bear fruit oh, I’m guessing 2 years after the next Democrat takes office. And don’t you know folks like me will want to give that Democratic President all the credit! Really, it’s not easy being George W. Bush.