I, too, suffer from occasional bouts of irrational optimism, but my basic view was that if they didn't do things fast, most of the good stuff would, at best, be compromised away. The DC way is to start with a half decent plan and a number, and figure out how to make it worse and worse and worse to satisfy arbitrary budget numbers and random demands, announce it with big fanfare, then agree to never talk about it again.
We'll see!!!!
