Republican attitudes to Obama’s proposed miniscule spending freeze were characterized thusly in a comment reported on the Washington Independent:

“Ninety-five percent of Republican candidates, officials, staffers and advisers do not give a rat’s ass about fiscal restraint or government size,” one strategist told TWI. “At the end of the day, 95 percent of them believe people want to hear about fiscal restraint, but ultimately want government to give them stuff. This is how we default to talking about tax cuts, not spending, because everyone is afraid that if you criticize a spending item, you’ll offend someone. Well, you will. But when you bankrupt the whole country, which Obama’s proposal is not going to stop, you offend millions.

I think this is not cynicism. There is a big chunk of people who talk about limited government (mostly repubs) but really do not want it when it comes to their paycheck from the government (social security and medicare) or government programs and policies that promote "national greatness" (i.e., war, occupation of other other countries, NASA, etc.).

Not that Obama is any better. At his meeting with republicans, he was asked if he would consider across-the-board tax cuts to really stimulate the economy. He replied that he would consider such cuts but not for Warren Buffett or the banking industry. In other words he was in favor of across-the-board tax relief so long as it wasn’t really across-the-board. And he wonders why people consider his programs more of the same old political bullshit.