Perhaps we shouldn’t be arguing over which PRESIDENT(s) have left us with huge or small messes, but with which CONGRESS(es) have left us with huge or small messes. The Democrats ran both Houses for W’s last two years and in those two years created the horrible economy that they insisted existed for the first 6 years of W’s Presidency. The Democrats resisted needed reforms in those two years and many economic metric downslides can be directly traced back to the Speakerships of Pelosi and Reid.
The President ALWAYS has the RIGHT and the RESPONSIBILITY to use a VETO pen and Bush II threatened to do just that if the English as an Official Language bill was passed.