ABSTRACT
Many people realize that the economic programs of the federal government affect the state of the economy. In fact, people often believe—falsely—that the president exerts direct control over the economy through these programs. President Clinton faced the central dilemma of economic policymaking—in many ways, the central dilemma of late-twentieth-century American politics: how to balance the desire of the American people for more and better public programs with their desire for a progressively less expensive government. A free market economy is one in which the government plays no role in exchanges between buyers and sellers. In contrast, income of the bottom 20 percent of the US population declined by more than 10 percent. In contrast, the 20 percent of the population at the bottom of the scale earns less than 5 percent of all US income. Business cycles are commonly believed to be recurring periods of economic growth above or below the average of economic growth.
