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Back in the 1990s politics were much less polarized. Nowadays, perhaps due to the WWW, polarization is so strong that a bipartisan collaboration on this matter is highly unlikely. I don't even know if the Democrats are in principle interested in shrinking the government.

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>Back in the 1990s politics were much less polarized.

The 90s were the era of Gingrich and the "Contract With America" and the rise of figures like Rush Limbaugh. If you weren't around it was pretty bad back then too. Witness the enduring "the Clintons are LITERALLY an evil crime family" meme from then that persists to this day.

I think about the quote that "Only Nixon could go to China" and maybe there's a corollary that "Only Clinton could balance the budget". Similar to how Nixon had the anti-commie credentials to be able visit Mao's China, Clinton had the liberal credentials to be able to cut social spending. I don't think that the budget surplus that Clinton left us was all due to social spending cuts, but he did make significant cuts.

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