Another thing that might have been different with a Gore win: when Bill Clinton left office, the federal government did not have a balanced budget - it had an actual budget surplus of hundreds of billions of dollars. With a continuation of that type of fiscal "conservatism", we could today have been debt-free as a nation. Instead, we have a debt of $34 fucking trillion.
You realise that debt of the government is equal to wealth in the private sector? Being debt-free would mean that there is no central bank money in circulation. How would this help the actual economy?
I would love to see what the actual contribution is for each party that controlled Congress/Presidency. While I'm sure there is spending that gets bipartisan support, I think the majority of the deficit in the last 20+ years has come from either wars initiated by Republicans and/or tax cuts (also initiated by Republicans).
All the spikes are from economic bailouts, well supported by both parties. That's clearly indicated in 2008 as both bush and Obama supported the bailouts.