Grover Norquist wrote an Op-Ed for The National Interest entitled “The Republican Party’s Hidden Advantages.”:
“First, the two great successes of the post-2010 Republican congressional party stand. In August 2011, President Obama agreed to reduce his planned spending by $2.5 trillion over a decade in order to win a $2.5 trillion hike in the debt ceiling. Most importantly, this was not a 1982 or 1990 promise to trade later spending cuts for permanent tax hikes. There was no tax hike. And the spending caps were enforced by the sequester to last for ten long years. The Republican leaders Boehner and McConnell knew from the beginning of this year’s fight over the Continuing Resolution (CR) and the debt ceiling that the central goal of the modern Republican party was to hold the sequester. It changed everything.”