By Philip Klein on 11.17.06 @ 4:32PM
David, that Boehner quote is telling, and it's worth expanding on how problematic it is. Everyone knows that in Washington, you're never going to get 100 percent of what you want, so the goal is to get as much as you can. President Reagan, and Gingrich in the early days of the Republican majority, both talked in terms of radically curtailing the size of government--slashing spending, eliminating programs, closing whole departments, etc. In the end, all they got was a reduction in the rate of growth in spending. By Boehner starting out negotiations with the rather modest goal of containing the growth of government, it virtually guarantees that we'll wind up with runaway spending and a vast expansion of the welfare state.
