The recession of 2008 was caused by the melt down of the subprime mortgage market and subsequent insolvency of freddie mac and fannie mae and several large brokerage firms. 
You can blame a lot of it on the unregulated bundling of mortgages and the domino effect from that. You might even want to put some of the blame (heaven forbid) on individuals that took out those mortgages that they could never pay back, but tax policy was not the real reason for the recession.
If it were to repeat itself and we were to elect another democrat, he/she would attempt to take over more of the private sector (Obamacare), crony capitalism would rule and our kids and grandkids would go further into unimaginable debt. 
The republicans have only been slightly better as far as the debt.
The real train wreck is going to be when we hit the wall with medicare/caid and social security. The entitlement society comes with a price, sooner or later.