Figures like Senators Pete Domenici and Alan Simpson, who talked a good game about the long-run deficit, never met a budget-busting Republican program that they would oppose or a deficit-reducing Democratic initiative that they could support. Economists who, under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, talked such a good game about excessive tax burdens and the importance of balanced budgets went very quiet after Clinton took office in January 1993, and stayed quiet after January 2001, when George W. Bush’s administration dismantled so much of what the Clinton administration had accomplished.