This is an excellent discussion by Greg Ip of how Barack has done in his economic policy choices and the economic role of presidents in general.

Note: The appropriate judgment of Barack’s performance would be much different if the many ways to stimulate aggregate demand

1. without adding too much to the national debt and
2. in an environment where short-term interest rates are already down to zero

had been better understood when he faced the economic challenges of the last few years.

On the many ways to stimulate aggregate demand without adding too much to the debt and in a low-interest rate environment, see my blog posts on short-run fiscal policy and monetary policy, which are nicely laid out in these two “sub-blogs” of tagged posts:

• http://blog.supplysideliberal.com/tagged/shortrunfiscal
• http://blog.supplysideliberal.com/tagged/money

These sub-blogs of tagged posts automatically update as I add more posts with the relevant tags. I put links to these sub-blogs on my sidebar. (I will add links to other sub-blogs soon.)