Major fallacy that things will only get better. ?  Well,  it also works the other way.  Things could also get worse too. One comes to mind, cough,  cost of rail. 
You claim we are not bad off,  yet  we have record number of homeless,  a state retirement system thats billions unfunded,  and a rail system that is grossly over budget to name a few. 
You blame GW for the economy crashing,  yet if you did a little research,  you'd find that America's economy rises and falls like the tides.   Some are small while others are major. It was bound to happen,  and just so happened that GW was in charge at the time.