…or nothing at all, ever. That’s the attitude of the Democratic Party in today’s Congress and of the farther right of the Republican Party in today’s Congress. It’s enough to paralyze Congress and keep it from doing much of anything—and to hand Congress back to the Democrats, which may explain some of their attitude.

I’ve argued before that gridlock isn’t, of necessity, a bad thing, but there are a few things Congress does need to accomplish.

A short, partial list includes

• funding the legitimate tasks of government, those enumerated in Art I, Sect 8 of our Constitution
• reforming taxes, which would have the side effect of paring back—significantly—an IRS that thinks it’s outside (not merely above) the law
• reforming immigration
• privatizing Social Security and Medicare, and getting rid of the Federal contributions to Medicaid

But none of this can be—nor should it be (Obamacare, anyone? Dodd-Frank?)—done all at once. Easy steps, compromises, that bring us incrementally into that reduced government place we should occupy—and will ultimately get us there.

But to get there, we need to take steps, one after another, not hold out for single leaps that cannot occur.