Check out how the laws of economics worked under Peter the Great, as they always do. (via CfG)

One of the problems with usual political debates is that people tend to point to, say, a president, and say "oh yeah this guy did great things with the economy," or "that guy failed to fix the economy."

The problem with such debates is that either way, they imply that economic health depends on how smart a certain politician was, or how timely a government's policies were. They imply that government should always "do something" to "stimulate" the economy, and that the options come down to, say, knowing which industries to subsidize, as opposed to whether or not to subsidize any industries at all.

The reality is, economic principles are a lot like a hard science - they are full of facts that cannot be reasonably debated (yet are debated). It is a fact that free trade benefits the globe more than any combination of protectionist policies. It is a fact that beyond taxing for things like roads and law enforcement, taxes are harmful to the economy. It is a fact that price controls hurt the economy.

So it should not matter who is in office, as long as these known and tried basic principles are followed. Any other "creative" economic actions or policies are by definition harmful to the economy - the only difference between them is how harmful they exactly are.

And of course, this means that economic principles have always been true (as they were with Peter the Great) and will always be true. You can't say, "oh, tax cuts worked during the Reagan years, but we need a different policy for a different time." No. That's like saying, "oh, there was gravity in the 19th century that made things fall to the ground, but we're not sure there is gravity today." It's ridiculous. Free trade, tax cuts, and privatization have always worked because of the laws of economics - and these laws will always hold true.