Name:   MartiniMan - Subject:   Bruce Bartlett Date:   3/3/2016 1:13:15 PM

And that is exactly my point, government control of health care has never worked out well and as we are seeing with Obamacare, we are not unique.  Anything the govt does is less efficient, costs more than it should and provides a potential for buying votes to hold onto power.  Of course there are areas that only govt can do such as infrastructure, national defense, law enforcement, etc.  That is fine.  But the expansion into all these other areas does nothing to help Americans and usually is detrimental.  We lost that fight starting with Lincoln going to war over the concept of Federalism which led to FDR, LBJ, etc.

And I agree that you can compromise everything but your principles.  Unfortunately for some reason the definition of compromise has morphed into Democrats getting everything they want.  No better example of this than the GOP always being blamed for govt shutdowns even when it happens because Democrats refuse to compromise.  The latest budget that was passed is a great example of how badly compromise works out for those of us that believe in limited federal govt and the need to reduce our deficits through reduction of costs.  We currently have record revenues to the federal govt and yet we still have a huge deficit.  The problem is with spending and in particular entitlement programs.