"When government talks reform on the eve of an election year, you can bet whatever they do will be based on the time honored principle of robbing Peter to pay Paul" (Reagan, in His Own Hand, New York 2001). That was Ronald Reagan in mid-October 1977, in advance of the '78 midterm elections. Reagan was responding to plans by Jimmy Carter to expand infrastructure spending -- an eerily familiar plan intended to create jobs in the midst of stagnant economic growth.