I think rather it proves that raising taxes on the rich strengthens economic growth for a variety of well researched reasons.
Such blanket statements are nonsense. The Clinton tax increases weren't large enough to have some magical massive impact on the entire economy. Besides Clinton signed tax increases in 93 then tax cuts in 97. His second term had better job growth, barely, but had much higher wage growth and govt revenue growth.
While presidents don't cause or avert recessions, economic policies certainly contribute to these results.
That I agree with. In general there are a limited number of things any president can do to help the economy, unfortunately they seem to have an unlimited ability to screw things up. Presidents can negatively impact the economy from many different angles other than economic policy.
And historic shows conservative economic policies of cutting taxes on the rich and deregulation leads inevitably to recessions.
Again blanket statement. Clinton signed a cut in cap gains from 28% to 20% in 97. The following years outperformed the previous. He also signed welfare reform, tariff reductions, raised the exemption on the inheritance tax and kept fed spending growth to 3%, with, I would argue, the help of a repub congress. None of this had nearly as large an impact on the 90s as the dotcom bubble and rising real estate values had.
