Potential growth

Taking the last three cycles we want the growth achievable before inflaton.  The blue line is inflation, after all the numbers come in.  That inflation measure peaks and we get a recession. The red line is real growth.

We can see that Bubba's regime never tested the limit, they kept the implicit low and real growth high.

Otherwise, it seem clear this graph shows potential growth has been dropping coincident with what?

Yes,you guessed it, rising debt; the one thing Bubba avoided. What else? Bubba and Obama have the same pattern, likely caused by having the same tax adjustment. In the end, real growth pulled ahead of the implicit, the virtuous cycle happened for a while.

The other thing.  Unless the Repubs rock the boat, it seems like we already had our mild Obama recession and didn't notice, or it is upon us now.  I have a hard time seeing a major crash of depression proportions in this chart, maybe a mild dip, a result of age an hurricane.