Some of my conservative friends are pretty mad about how Republicans have acted during the just-finished budget-writing session in Congress, and I don't blame them.

I share their frustration, but not necessarily their anger. For a little perspective, let me take you back for an admittedly broad sweep over recent history.

For almost all of the last 40 years, Republicans have been the loyal opposition. The presidency has bounced back and forth, but the Congress has been in the hands of the Democrats, by and large.

Republicans have used the "no" vote and the filibuster, combined with the veto power and the "bully pulpit" of the presidency when they have had it, to dig in their heels and keep the Democratic spending and borrowing frenzy from taking us completely over the edge into a depth of debt from which we won't recover.

I'm not vilifying Democrats here. Most of them have the best of intentions, but sometimes we have to be saved from good intentions. People who work and struggle to make ends meet simply cannot afford the good intentions of Democrats who have reached into their pockets over the last 40 years.

We needed more balance. We needed a Republican majority from time to time, just to keep the tax-and-spend frenzy and the willingness to ignore the Constitution in the name of doing good in check.

During most of those last 40 years, the Republican Party has been dominated by nice guys like Bob Dole and Bob Michael (former minority leader), who accepted their role meekly and did what they could to keep things from getting completely out of hand. When they did get the majority for a brief period, they didn't have the slightest idea what to do with it, and when they were in the minority, they put up a very gentlemanly fight when it came to the total insanity the majority was calling a federal budget.

Spending got completely out of control, we obligated our grandchildren for a trillion dollars in debt, and Democrats generally had a drunken budgetary orgy.

Then Ronald Reagan came along. With Congress still solidly in the hands of Democrats, he couldn't stop the spending juggernaut either, but he at least managed to keep a little more income in the hands of average people, who used it to fuel an incredible period of economic prosperity.

At budget time, he used the threat of veto and government shutdown to slow the rate of increase in spending a tiny bit, and we saw the beginning of the Democratic strategy of misinformation (with collusion from the national media) that continues to be their strong suit today. When Reagan managed to cut the rate of increase in some favored spending program from 12 percent to 11.5 percent, Democrats wailed about how he had "slashed" or "gutted" aid to the poor, homeless and elderly.

And those kinds of words got repeated in headlines and TV news reports, even though most news people are smart enough to know that the use of such words is an out-and-out lie.

The other part of their strategy, which Clinton has refined to machinelike perfection, is that of blaming Republicans for the things they do. Even though Reagan's tax cuts resulted in increases in revenue (because of the increased economic activity), they passed budget after budget with billions of dollars in deficits, overrode presidential vetoes, and then wagged their fingers at Reagan, saying his tax cuts were to blame.

I couldn't believe I was hearing Democrats wailing about budget deficits. Just a few years earlier, when Ted Kennedy was challenging Jimmy Carter for reelection, he actually made fun of Carter for his desire to have a balanced budget, and Democratic leaders were quick to join him in saying that a balanced budget simply wouldn't provide enough money to fund all the programs the country needed.

Newt Gingrich has been the first Republican leader to actually make a difference. He put together a vision to radically change this nation, not just sit back and vote "no" while Democrats hang weight after weight around the necks of working Americans.

But he has a lot more experience working from a minority position. Now that he has the majority, he has his hands full.

Anybody that thought it was going to happen overnight, and with no further struggle, was living in dream land. Bill Clinton is an "artful Dodger," and he has a willing accomplice in the national press.

Republicans caved in on the budget this year, giving Clinton everything he wanted. He wanted to spend some of that "budget surplus" on pork barrel programs (all the while conducting tearful press conferences to tell us how he wants to use that money to "save" Social Security), and they let him get away with it.

He privately thanked them for giving him everything he wanted, and then Democrats around the country took to the microphones to bash them mercilessly, denouncing them for a budget that kills old people, starves the homeless, causes veterans to have flashbacks and takes food from the mouths of children.

But the alternative was to go into this year's election being blamed by Clinton and the media for Clinton's decision to shut down the government.

A strategic withdrawal, perhaps. I don't know if it was the right thing to do. I share the frustration of those who want improvements to come quickly. But the fact is that we are out-manned and out-gunned. We need the presidency, or a bigger majority in Congress, and Republican leadership is still inexperienced at its new role of majority party.