happened in the '90s, they have to say, what happened after 2000. because by making it everybody's fault, everybody is to blame, they make it nobody is to blame which means they themselves is not to blame. a lot of centrists have adopted this theory, too. the fact of the matter is, there are distinct periods of responsibility and irresponsibility. >> there is this constant lie that you hear and it's taken as conventional wisdom. reagan went along with the tax increases in exchange for the spending cuts but we never got the spending cuts. yes, we did. >> yes. >> and we did indeed legislate half spending cuts in that bill. clinton did. half of it was taxation and half was real spending cuts. >> if you go back to when congress agrees to spending cuts, they actually happen. if you look under reagan, domestic discretionary spending was squeezed a lot. it's not as if nothing happened.