The 90s were a pretty decent decade because:

A) For the first time in four decades the Republicans ran Congress (the budget branch) and Congress was led by Gingrich, who has some idea what the hell conservative principles are. I'm fascinated that this trend-busting circumstance is never considered when passing credit around for the 90s boom. We tend to forget the first two years of Clinton when the Democrats were beginning to push for all the same crap they're shoving down our throats now, but didn't manage to pull it off.

B) Clinton wasn't a committed leftist.

I think we will all do a lot better if Obama is still president, but the Republicans take the Congress back. It would be interesting to have two data points on this rare combination.

If you look at that chart, the only eras where modern Democrats had real power was the Carter years (77-80), the first two years of Clinton (93-94), and now. You might remember we weren't doing so hot during the Carter years. In 93 and 94, the Democrats were stopped from doing several stupid things before the Republicans took over. Why that was possible is a whole different post.

Before that, the presidents were Kennedy and Johnson, who were an entirely different breed of Democrat than Obama and Pelosi. Even so, Johnson's entitlements are currently wrecking our entire long-range budget situation.